THE WORLD OF MATTER 

AND 

THE SPIRIT OF MAN 



The World of Matter 

and 

The Spirit of Man 

LATEST DISCOURSES OF RELIGION 

BY 

THEODORE PARKER 

EDITED WITH NOTES 
BY 

GEORGE WILLIS COOKE 




I 

BOSTON 
AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 
25 Beacon Street 



Copyright, 1907 
American - Unitarian Association - 



Peesswork by The Uniyebsity Press, Cambridge, U. S. A. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 



The lecture and the sermons contained in the pres- 
ent volume have not appeared in any previous Amer- 
ican edition of Theodore Parker's writings. The six 
sermons on " The Revelation of God in the World of 
Matter and Mind," and the two on " The Theological 
and Philosophical Development of New England " 
have never before been in print. That on " Ec- 
clesiastical Institutions and Religious Consciousness," 
that on " The Delights of Piety," and the four on 
" The Biblical, Ecclesiastical and Philosophical No- 
tion of God " were printed in the reports of the Long- 
wood Progressive Friends for 1855 and 1858. The 
lecture on " Transcendentalism " was printed as a 
tract in 1876, by the Free Religious Association. The 
sermon on " Beauty in the World of Matter " ap- 
peared in pamphlet form in 1859. Miss Cobbe in- 
cluded in her edition of Parker's works the Longwood 
sermons of 1855 and that last mentioned. Of the six- 
teen pieces in this volume, therefore, eight have not 
before appeared in print, and the others have not 
previously found place in any American volume. 

In editing this volume I have attempted to give 
Parker's sermons in as faithful a manner as possible. 
The six sermons from which the volume is named have 
been carefully revised by Mr. Rufus Leighton (who 
reported them from Mr. Parker's lips), with the aid 
of his own notes and the author's manuscripts. The 
circumstances attending the writing, delivery, and 
printing of each sermon will be found detailed in the 
appended Notes. 

iii 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 



The six sermons on " The Revelation of God in the 
World of Matter and the Spirit of Man " were among 
the last which Parker wrote. He devoted to them 
much careful preparation. They were repeated at the 
request of the Music Hall congregation in the last 
months of 1857 and the first of 1858 ; and the preacher 
planned to revise and publish them. He regarded 
these sermons as the most important he had given to 
his congregation in Boston, and the most satisfactory 
statement of his later opinions he had been able to 
produce. After his death they were prepared for pub- 
lication under the direction of Mrs. Parker, but they 
were not given to the public. 

These sermons indicate clearly the remarkable de- 
gree to which Parker kept abreast of the growing 
knowledge and thought of his day, and even much in 
advance of them. He welcomed every phase of the 
scientific advance being made around him, and he hailed 
with enthusiasm the labors of Darwin, which came im- 
perfectly to his knowledge in the last months of his 
life. No theist of 1858 could have anticipated more 
completely than he the reconstruction of theological 
opinions resulting from the theory of evolution. 

I may venture to think that nothing has yet been 
written which shows so complete an acceptance of man's 
relations to the universe, and yet so profound a piety, 
as some of the sermons contained in this volume. 

G. W. C. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

I. Transcendentalism 1 

II. Ecclesiastical Institutions and Re- 
ligious Consciousness .... 39 

III. The Biblical Ecclesiastical and Phil- 
osophical Notion of God ... 97 

1. Conception of God in the Bible . . 99 

2. The Ecclesiastical Conception of God 121 

3. The Natural and Philosophical Idea of 

God 144 

4. The Soul's Normal Delight in God . 167 

IV. The Delights of Piety .... 187 
V. Beauty in the World of Matter . 207 

VI. God's Revelation in Matter and Mind 229 

1. Innermost Facts of Religious Con- 

sciousness 231 

2. God in the World of Matter . . 250 

3. God in the World of Man ... 267 

4. God in the Relation between Matter 

and Man 286 

5. The World of Matter and the Spirit of 

Man 307 

6. Relation of God and Man ... 329 

VII. Theological and Philosophical De- 
velopment of New England . . 349 



Notes 



397 



I 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 

The will is father to the deed, but the thought and 
sentiment are father and mother of the will. Nothing 
seems more impotent than a thought, it has neither 
hands nor feet, — but nothing proves so powerful. The 
thought turns out a thing; its vice or virtue becomes 
manners, habits, laws, institutions; the abstraction be- 
comes concrete; the most universal proposition is the 
most particular; and in the end it is the abstract 
thinker who is the most practical man and sets mills 
a-running and ships to sail. 

A change of ideas made all the difference between 
Catholic and Protestant, monarchical and democratic. 
You see that all things are first an idea in the mind, 
then a fact out of the mind. The architect, the 
farmer, the railroad-calculator, the founder of empires, 
has his temple, his farm, his railroad, or his empire, 
in his head as an idea before it is a fact in the world, 
As the thought is the thing becomes. Every idea bears 
fruit after its kind, — the good, good; the bad, bad. 
Some few hundred years ago John Huss, Luther, Lord 
Bacon, Descartes said, We will not be ruled by author- 
ity in the church or the school, but by common sense 
and reason. That was nothing but an idea ; but out of 
it has come the Protestant Reformation, the English 
Revolution, the American Revolution, the French Revo- 
lution, the cycle of Revolutions that fill up the year 
1848. Yes, all the learned societies of Europe, all the 
Protestant churches, all the liberal governments, — of 
1-1 1 



2 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



Holland, England, France, Germany, America, — have 
come of that idea. The old fellows in Galileo's time 
would not look through his telescope lest it should de- 
stroy the authorized theory of vision; they knew what 
they were about. So have all the old fellows known 
ever since who refuse to look through a new telescope, 
or even at it, but only talk against it. Once the Egyp- 
tian sculptors copied men into stone with their feet 
joined and their hands fixed to their sides. The copy 
indicated the immutableness of things in Egypt, where 
a mummy was the type of a man. A Greek sculptor 
separated the feet, as in life, illegally taking a live 
man for his type. The sculptor lost his head, for the 
government saw a revolution of the empire in this de- 
parture from the authorized type of man. Such is the 
power of ideas. The first question to ask of a civilized 
nation is, How do they think? what is their philosophy? 

Now it is the design of philosophy to explain the 
phenomena of the universe by showing their order, 
connection, cause, law, use and meaning. These phe- 
nomena are of two kinds or forms, as they belong to 
the material world — facts of observation ; and as they 
belong to the spiritual world — facts of consciousness : 
facts without, and facts within. From these two forms 
of phenomena or facts there come two grand divisions 
of philosophy: the philosophy of outward things, — 
physics; the philosophy of inward things, — meta- 
physics. 

In the material world, to us, there are only facts. 
Man carries something thither, to wit, ideas. Thus 
the world has quite a different look; for he finds the 
facts without have a certain relation to the ideas 
within. The world is one thing to Newton's dog Dia- 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 3 



mond, quite another to Newton himself. The dog saw 
only the facts and some of their uses ; the philosopher 
saw therein the reflected image of his own ideas, — > 
saw order, connection, cause, law and meaning, as well 
as use. 

Now in the pursuit of philosophy there are two meth^ 
ods which may be followed, namely, the deductive and 
the inductive. 

I. By the deductive the philosopher takes a certain 
maxim or principle, assumes it as a fact and therefrom 
deduces certain other maxims or principles as con- 
clusions, as facts. But in the conclusions there must 
be nothing which is not in the primary fact else the 
conclusion does not conclude. All pure science is of 
this character — geometry, algebra, arithmetic. 1 + 1 
= 2 is a maxim, let us suppose : 1000 + 1000 = 2000 
is one deduction from it; 25 X 25 = 625, another de- 
duction. Thus the philosopher must be certain of the 
fact he starts from, of the method he goes by, and the 
conclusion he stops at is made sure of beforehand. 

The difficulty is that the philosopher often assumes 
his first fact, takes a fancy for a fact; then, though 
the method be right, the conclusion is wrong. For in- 
stance, Aristotle assumed this proposition, — the matter 
of the sun is incorruptible ; thence he deduced this fact, 
that the sun does not change, that its light and heat 
are constant quantities. The conclusion did not agree 
with observation, the theory with the facts. His first 
fact was not proved, could not be, was disproved. But 
when Galileo looked at the sun with a telescope he saw 
spots on the sun, movable spots. Aristotle's first fact 
turned out a fancy, so all conclusion from it. The 
Koran is written by the infallible inspiration of God, 
the Pope is infallible, the King can do no wrong, the 



4 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



People are always right, — these are assumptions. If 
taken as truths, you see the conclusions which may be 
deduced therefrom, — which have been. There is in 
God somewhat not wholly good, is an assumption which 
lies at the bottom of a good deal of theology, whence 
conclusions quite obvious are logically deduced, — 1, 
Manicheism, God and the devil; 2, God and an evil 
never to be overcome. God is absolute good is another 
assumption from which the opposite deductions are to 
be made. The method of deduction is of the greatest 
value and cannot be dispensed with. 

II. By the inductive method the philosopher takes 
facts, puts them together after a certain order, seen in 
nature or devised in his own mind, and tries to find a 
more comprehensive fact common to many facts, i.e., 
what is called a law, which applies to many facts and 
so is a general law, or to all facts and so is a universal 
law. In the deductive method you pass from a uni- 
versal fact to a particular fact; in the inductive, from 
the particular to the general. In the deductive proc- 
ess there is nothing in the conclusion which was not 
first in the premises; by the inductive something new 
is added at every step. The philosopher is sifting in 
his own conjecture or thought in order to get at a 
general idea which takes in all the particular facts in 
the case and explains them. When this general idea 
and the facts correspond the induction is correct. But 
it is as easy to arrive at a false conclusion by the in- 
ductive process as to assume a false maxim from which 
to make deductions. A physician's apprentice once 
visited his master's patient and found him dead, and 
reported the case accordingly. "What killed him?" 
said the old doctor. " He died of eating a horse." 
" Eating a horse ! " expostulated the man of experi- 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 5 



ence; "impossible! how do you know that?" "He 
did," said the inductive son of ^Esculapius, " for I 
saw the saddle and bridle under the bed." Another, 
but a grown-up doctor, once gave a sick blacksmith a 
certain medicine ; he recovered. " Post hoc, ergo prop- 
ter hoc," said the doctor, and tried the same drug on 
the next sick man, who was a shoemaker. The shoe- 
maker died, and the doctor wrote down his induction: 
" This drug will cure all sick blacksmiths, but kill all 
sick shoemakers. (Rule for phosphorus.)." 

The inductive method is also indispensable in all the 
sciences which depend on observation or experiment. 
The process of induction is as follows : After a num- 
ber of facts is collected, the philosopher looks for some 
one fact common to all and explanatory thereof. To 
obtain this he assumes a fact as a law, and applies it to 
the facts before him. This is an hypothesis. If it 
correspond to the facts, the hypothesis is true. Two 
great forms of error are noticeable in the history of 
philosophy: 1, the assumption of false maxims, whence 
deductions are to be made, — the assumption of no-fact 
for a fact; 2, the making of false inductions from 
actual facts. In the first, a falsehood is assumed, and 
then falsehood deduced from it; in the second, from a 
truth falsehood is induced, and this new falsehood is 
taken as the basis whence other falsehoods are deduced. 

Pythagoras declared the sun was the centre of the 
planets which revolved about it; that was an hy- 
pothesis, — guess-work, and no more. He could not 
compare the hypothesis with facts, so his hypothesis 
could not be proved or disproved. But long after- 
wards others made the comparison and confirmed the 
hypothesis. Kepler wished to find out what ratio the 
time of a planet's revolution bears to its distance from 



6 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



the sun. He formed an hypothesis, — " The time is 
proportionable to the distance." No, that did not 
agree with the facts. " To the square of the dis- 
tance? " No. "To the cube of the distance?" No. 
" The square of the time to the cube of the distance? " 
This he found to be the case, and so he established his 
celebrated law, — Kepler's third law. But he exam- 
ined only a few planets : how should he know the law 
was universal? He could not learn that by induction. 
That would only follow from this postulate, " The 
action of nature is always uniform," which is not an 
induction, nor a deduction, but an assumption. The 
inductive method alone never establishes a universal 
law, for it cannot transcend the particular facts in 
the hands of the philosopher. The axioms of mathe- 
matics are not learned by inductions, but assumed out- 
right as self-evident. " Kepler's third law is universal 
of all bodies moving about a centre," — now there are 
three processes by which that conclusion is arrived at: 

1. The process of induction, by which the law is proved 
general and to apply to all the cases investigated. 

2. A process of deduction from the doctrine or axiom, 
that the action of nature is always uniform. 3. That 
maxim is obtained by a previous process of assumption 
from some source or another. 

Such is the problem of philosophy, to explain the 
facts of the universe ; such the two departments of 
philosophy, physics and metaphysics ; such the two 
methods of inquiry, deductive and inductive; such are 
the two forms of error, — the assumption of a false 
fact as the starting-point of deduction, the induction of 
a false fact by the inductive process. Now these meth- 
ods are of use in each department of philosophy, indis- 
pensable in each, in physics and in metaphysics. 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 



7 



This is the problem of metaphysics, — to explain the 
facts of human consciousness. In metaphysics there 
are and have long been two schools of philosophers. 
The first is the sensational school. Its most impor- 
tant metaphysical doctrine is this : There is nothing in 
the intellect which was not first in the senses. Here 
" intellect " means the whole intellectual, moral, af- 
fectional and religious consciousness of man. The 
philosophers of this school claim to have reached this 
conclusion legitimately by the inductive method. It 
was at first an hypothesis; but after analyzing the 
facts of consciousness, interrogating all the ideas and 
sentiments and sensations of man, they say the hy- 
pothesis is proved by the most careful induction. They 
appeal to it as a principle, as a maxim, from which 
other things are deduced. They say that experience 
by one or more of the senses is the ultimate appeal in 
philosophy: all that I know is of sensational origin; 
the senses are the windows which let in all the light I 
have; the senses afford a sensation. I reflect upon 
this, and by reflection transform a sensation into an 
idea. An idea, therefore, is a transformed sensation. 

A school in metaphysics soon becomes a school in 
physics, in politics, ethics, religion. The sensational 
school has been long enough in existence to assert itself 
in each of the four great forms of human action. Let 
us see what it amounts to. 

I. In physics. 1. It does not afford us a certainty 
of the existence of the outward world. The sensa- 
tionalist believes it, not on account of his sensational 
philosophy, but in spite of it; not by his philosophy, 
but by his common sense: he does not philosophically 
know it. While I am awake the senses give me various 
sensations, and I refer the sensations to an object out 



8 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



of me, and so perceive its existence. But while I am 
asleep the senses give me various sensations, and for 
the time I refer the sensations to an object out of me, 
and so perceive its existence, — but when I awake it 
seems a dream. Now, if the senses deceive me in sleep, 
why not when awake? How can I know philosoph- 
ically the existence of the material world? With only 
the sensational philosophy I cannot ! I can only know 
the facts of consciousness. I cannot pass from ideas 
to things, from psychology to ontology. Indeed there 
is no ontology, and I am certain only of my own con- 
sciousness. Bishop Berkeley, a thorough sensational- 
ist, comes up with the inductive method in his hand, 
and annihilates the outward material world, annihilates 
mankind, leaves me nothing but my own consciousness, 
and no consciousness of any certainty there. Dr. 
Priestley, a thorough sensationalist, comes up with the 
same inductive method in his hand, and annihilates the 
spiritual world, annihilates the soul. Berkeley, with 
illogical charity, left me the soul as an existence, but 
stripped me of matter ; I was certain I had a soul, not 
at all sure of my body. Priestley, as illogically, left 
me the body as an existence, but stripped me of the 
soul. Both of these gentlemen I see were entirely in 
the right, if their general maxim be granted; and so, 
between the two, I am left pretty much without soul or 
sense! Soul and body are philosophically hurled out 
of existence! 

2. From its hypothetical world sensationalism pro- 
ceeds to the laws of matter ; but it cannot logically get 
beyond its facts. Newton says, " Gravitation pre- 
vails, — its power diminishing as the square of the dis- 
tance increases between two bodies, so far as I have 
seen." " Is it so where you have not seen? " Newton 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 9 



don't know; he cannot pass from a general law to a 
universal law. As the existence of the world is hy- 
pothetical, so the universality of laws of the world is 
only hypothetical universality. The Jesuits who edited 
the Prinicipia were wise men when they published them 
as an hypothesis. r 

The sensational philosophy has prevailed chiefly in 
England ; that is the home of its ablest representatives, 
— Bacon, Locke. See the effect. England turns her 
attention to sciences that depend chiefly on observa- 
tion, on experiment, — botany, chemistry, the descrip- 
tive part of astronomy, zoology, geology. England 
makes observations on the tides, on variations of the 
magnetic needle, on the stars ; fits out exploring ex- 
peditions; learns the facts; looks after the sources of 
the Nile, the Niger; hunts up the North Pole; tests 
the strength of iron, wood, gunpowder; makes im- 
provements in all the arts, in mechanics. But in meta- 
physics she does nothing; in the higher departments 
of physics — making comprehensive generalizations — 
she does little. Even in mathematics, after Newton, 
for a hundred years England fell behind the rest of 
Europe. She is great at experiment, little at pure 
thinking. 

The sensational philosophy has no idea of cause, ex- 
cept that of empirical connection in time and place ; no 
idea of substance, only of body, or form of substance ; 
no ontology, but phenomenology. It refers all ques- 
tions — say of the planets about the sun — to an out- 
ward force: when they were made, God, standing out- 
side, gave them a push and set them a-going; or else 
their motion is the result of a fortuitous concourse of 
atoms, a blind fate. Neither conclusion is a philo- 
sophical conclusion, each an hypothesis. Its physics 



10 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



are mere materialism ; hence it delights in the atomistic 
theory of nature and repels the dynamic theory of 
matter. The sensationalist's physics appear well in a 
celebrated book, " The Vestiges of the Natural His- 
tory of Creation." The book has many valuable 
things in it, but the philosophy of its physics is an 
unavoidable result of sensationalism. There is noth- 
ing but materialism in his world. All is material, ef- 
fects material, causes material, his God material, — 
not surpassing the physical universe, but co-extensive 
therewith. In zoology life is the result of organiza- 
tion, but is an immanent life. In anthropology the 
mind is the result of organization, but is an imma- 
nent mind; in theology God is the result of organiza- 
tion, but is an immanent God. Life does not transcend 
organization, nor does mind, nor God. All is matter. 

II. In politics. Sensationalism knows nothing of ab- 
solute right, absolute justice; only of historical right, 
historical justice. " There is nothing in the intellect 
which was not first in the senses." The senses by 
which we learn of justice and right are hearing and 
seeing. Do I reflect, and so get a righter right and 
juster justice than I have seen or heard of, it does me 
no good, for " nothing is in the intellect which was 
not in the senses." Thus absolute justice is only a 
whim, a no-thing, a dream. Men that talk of abso- 
lute justice, absolute right, are visionary men. 

In politics, sensationalism knows nothing of ideas, 
only of facts ; " the only lamp by which its feet are 
guided is the lamp of experience." All its facts are 
truths of observation, not of necessity. " There is no 
right but might," is the political philosophy of sensa- 
tionalism. It may be the might of a king, of an aris- 
tocracy, of a democracy, the might of passions, the 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 11 



might of intellect, the might of muscle, — it has a 
right to what it will. It appeals always to human his^ 
tory, not human nature. Now human history shows 
what has been, not what should be or will be. To rea- 
son about war it looks not to the natural justice, only 
to the cost and present consequences. To reason about 
free trade or protection, it looks not to the natural 
justice or right of mankind, but only to the present 
expediency of the thing. Political expediency is the 
only right or justice it knows in its politics. So it 
always looks back, and says " it worked well at Barce- 
lona or Venice," or " did not work well." It loves to 
cite precedents out of history, not laws out of nature. 
It claims a thing not as a human right, but as an his- 
torical privilege received by Magna Charta or the 
Constitution; as if a right were more of a right be- 
cause time-honored and written on parchment; or 
less, because just claimed and for the first time and by 
a single man. The sensationalist has no confidence in 
ideas, so asks for facts to hold on to and to guide him 
in his blindness. Said a governor in America, " The 
right of suffrage is universal." " How can that be," 
said a sensationalist, " when the Constitution of the 
state declares that certain persons shall not vote ? " 
He knew no rights before they became constitutional, 
no rights but vested rights, — perhaps none but " inr- 
vested." 

The sensationalists in politics divide into two parties, 
each with the doctrine that in politics " might makes 
right." One party favors the despotism of the few, — 
is an oligarchy ; or of the one, — is a monarchy. 
Hence the doctrine is, " The king can do no wrong." 
All power is his; he may delegate it to the people as 
a privilege; it is not theirs by right, by nature, and 



12 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



his as a trust. He has a right to make any laws he 
will, not merely any just laws. The people must pay 
passive obedience to the king, he has eminent domain 
over them. The celebrated Thomas Hobbes is the best 
representative of this party, and has one great merit, 
— of telling what he thought. 

The other party favors the despotism of the many, 
• — is a democracy. The doctrine is, " The people can 
do no wrong." The majority of the people have the 
right to make any laws they will, not merely any just 
laws; and the minority must obey, right or wrong. 
You must not censure the measures of the majority, 
you afford " aid and comfort to the enemy." The 
state has absolute domain over the citizen, the majority 
over the minority; this holds good of the voters, and 
of any political party in the nation. For the majority 
has power of its own right, for its own behoof; not 
in trust, and for the good of all and each! The aim 
of sensational politics is the greatest good of the great- 
est number; this may be obtained by sacrificing the 
greatest good of the lesser number, — by sacrificing 
any individual, — or sacrificing absolute good. In 
No-man's-land this party prevails: the dark-haired 
men, over forty million, — the red-haired, only three 
million five hundred thousand, — the dark-haired en- 
slave the red-haired for the greatest good of the great- 
est number. But in a hundred years the red-haired 
men are most numerous, and turn round and enslave 
the black-haired. 

Thomas Paine is a good representative of this party ; 
so is Marat, Robespierre, the author of the " Systeme 
de la Nature." 1 In the old French Revolution you 
see the legitimate consequence of this doctrine, that 
might makes right, that there is no absolute justice, 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 13 



in the violence, the murder, the wholesale assassination. 
The nation did to masses, and in the name of democ- 
racy, what all kings had done to the nation and in the 
name of monarchy, — sought the greatest good of the 
controlling power at the sacrifice of an opponent. It 
is the same maxim which in cold blood hangs a single 
culprit, enslaves three million negroes, and butchers 
thousands of men as in the September massacres. The 
sensational philosophy established the theory that 
might makes right, — and the mad passions of a soli- 
tary despot, or a million-headed mob, made it a fact. 
Commonly the two parties unite by a compromise, and 
then it consults not the greatest good of its king alone, 
as in a brutal, pure monarchy; not of the greatest 
number, as in a pure and brutal democracy; but the 
greatest good of a class, — the nobility and gentry in 
England, the landed proprietors and rich burghers in 
Switzerland, the slaveholders in South Carolina. Vol- 
taire is a good representative of this type of sensa- 
tional politics, not to come nearer home. In peaceful 
times England shares the defect of the sensational 
school in politics. Her legislation is empirical; great 
ideas do not run through her laws ; she loves a precedent 
better than a principle; appeals to an accidental fact 
of human history, not an essential fact of human na- 
ture which is prophetic. Hence legislative politics is 
not a great science which puts the facts of human con- 
sciousness into a state, making natural justice common 
law; nothing but a poor dealing with precedents, a 
sort of national housekeeping and not very thrifty 
housekeeping. In our own nation you see another 
example of the same, — result of the same sensational 
philosophy. There is no right, says Mr. Calhoun, 2 
but might; the white man has that, so the black man 



14 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



is his political prey. And Mr. Polk tells us that Ver- 
mont, under the Constitution, has the same right to 
establish slavery as Georgia to abolish it. 

III. In ethics. Ethics are the morals of the indi- 
vidual ; politics of the mass. The sensationalist knows 
no first truths in morals ; the source of maxims in mor- 
als is experience; in experience there is no absolute 
right. Absolute justice, absolute right, were never in 
the senses, so not in the intellect ; only whimsies, words 
in the mouth. The will is not free, but wholly con- 
ditioned, in bondage; character made always for you, 
not by you. The intellect is a smooth table ; the moral 
power a smooth table ; and experience writes there what 
she will, and what she writes is law of morality. Mor- 
ality is expediency, nothing more; nothing is good of 
itself, right of itself, just of itself, — but only because 
it produces agreeable consequences, which are agreeable 
sensations. Dr. Paley is a good example of the sensa- 
tional moralist. I ask him "What is right, just?" 
He says, " There are no such things ; they are the 
names to stand for what works well in the long run." 
" How shall I know what to do in a matter of morals? 
by referring to a moral sense?" "Not at all: only 
by common sense, by observation, by experience, by 
learning what works well in the long run; by human 
history, not human nature. To make a complete code 
of morals by sensationalism you must take the history 
of mankind, and find what has worked well, and follow 
that because it worked well." " But human history 
only tells what has been and worked well, not what is 
right. I want what is right ! " He answers, " It is 
pretty much the same thing." " But suppose the first 
men endowed with faculties perfectly developed, would 
they know what to do ? " " Not at all. Instinct 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 15 



would tell the beast antecedent to experience, but man 
has no moral instinct, must learn only by actual trial." 
" Well," say I, " let alone that matter, let us come to 
details. What is honesty ? " " It is the best policy." 
" Why must I tell the truth, keep my word, be chaste, 
temperate ? " " For the sake of the reward, the respect 
of your fellows, the happiness of a long life and heaven 
at last. On the whole God pays well for virtue ; though 
slow pay, he is sure." " But suppose the devil paid the 
better pay? " " Then serve him, for the end is not the 
service, but the pay. Virtue, and by virtue I mean all 
moral excellence, is not a good in itself, but good as 
producing some other good." " Why should I be vir- 
tuous? " " For the sake of the reward." " But vice 
has its rewards, they are present and not future, im- 
mediate and certain, not merely contingent and me- 
diate. I should think them greater than the reward of 
virtue." Then vice to you is virtue, for it pays best. 
The sensational philosophy knows no conscience to 
sound in the man's ears the stern word, Thou oughtest 
so to do, come what will come ! 

In politics might makes right, so in morals. Suc- 
cess is the touchstone ; the might of obtaining the re- 
ward the right of doing the deed. Bentham represents 
the sensational morals of politics ; Paley of ethics. Both 
are Epicureans. The sensationalist and the Epicurean 
agree in this, — enjoyment is the touchstone of virtue 
and determines what is good, what bad, what indiffer- 
ent: this is the generic agreement. Heathen Epicurus 
spoke only of enjoyment in this life; Christian Arch- 
deacon Paley — and a very archdeacon — spoke of 
enjoyment also in the next: this is the specific differ- 
ence. In either case virtue ceases to be virtue, for it 
is only a bargain. 



16 MATTER AND SPIRIT 

There is a school of sensationalists who turn off and 
say, " Oh, you cannot answer the moral questions and 
tell what is right, just, fair, good. We must settle 
that by revelation." That, of course, only adjourns 
the question and puts the decision on men who received 
the revelation or God who made it. They do not meet 
the philosopher's question; they assume that the dif- 
ference between right and wrong is not knowable by 
human faculties, and, if there be any difference between 
right and wrong, there is no faculty in man which nat- 
urally loves right and abhors wrong, still less any fac- 
ulty which can find out what is right, what wrong. So 
all moral questions are to be decided by authority, be- 
cause somebody said so; not by reference to facts of 
consciousness, but to phenomena of history. Of course 
the moral law is not a law which is of me, rules in me 
and by me ; only one put on me, which rules over me ! 
Can any lofty virtue grow out of this theory? any 
heroism? Verily not. Regulus did not ask a reward 
for his virtue; if so, he made but a bargain, and who 
would honor him more than a desperate trader who 
made a good speculation? There is something in man 
which scoffs at expediency; which will do right, justice, 
truth, though hell itself should gape and bid him hold 
his peace ; the morality which anticipates history, loves 
the right for itself. Of this Epicurus knew nothing, 
Paley nothing, Bentham nothing, sensationalism noth- 
ing. Sensationalism takes its standard of political 
virtue from the House of Commons ; of right from the 
Constitution and common law; of commercial virtue 
from the board of brokers at their best, and the old 
bankrupt law ; or virtue in general from the most com- 
fortable classes of society, from human history, not 
human nature; and knows nothing more. The virtue 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 17 



of a Regulus, of a Socrates, of a Christ, it knows not. 

See the practical effect of this. " A young man goes 
into trade. Experience meets him with the sensation- 
alist morals in its hand, and says, " 6 Caveat emptor, Let 
the buyer look to it, not you ; ' you must be righteous, 
young man, but not righteous overmuch ; you must tell 
the truth to all who have the right to ask you, and when 
and where they have a right to ask you, — otherwise 
you may lie. The mistake is not in lying, or deceit; 
but in lying and deceiving to your own disadvantage. 
You must not set up a private conscience of your own 
in your trade, you will lose the confidence of respecta- 
ble people. You must have a code of morals which 
works well and produces agreeable sensations in the 
long run. To learn the true morals of business you 
must not ask conscience, that is a whim and very un- 
philosophical. You must ask, How did Mr. Smith 
make his money? He cheated, and so did Mr. Brown 
and Mr. Jones, and they cheat all round. Then you 
must do the same, only be careful not to cheat so as to 
6 hurt your usefulness ' and ' injure your reputation.' " 

Shall I show the practical effects of this, not on very 
young men, in politics? It would hurt men's feelings, 
and I have no time for that. 

IV. In religion. Sensationalism must have a philoso- 
phy of religion, a theology ; let us see what theology. 
There are two parties ; one goes by philosophy, the 
other mistrusts philosophy. 

1. The first thing in theology is to know God. The 

idea of God is the touchstone of a theologian. Now to 

know the existence of God is to be certain thereof as of 

my own existence. " Nothing in the intellect which 

was not first in the senses," says sensationalism ; " all 

comes by sensational experience and reflection thereon." 
1—2 



18 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



Sensationalism — does that give us the idea of God? 
I ask the sensationalist, " Does the sensational eye see 
God?" "No." "The ear hear him?" "No." "Do 
the organs of sense touch or taste him? 99 " No." 
" How then do you get the idea of God? " " By in- 
duction from facts of observation a posteriori. The 
senses deal with finite things; I reflect on them, put 
them all together I assume that they have cause; then 
by the inductive method I find out the character of that 
cause : that is God." Then I say, " But the senses deal 
with only finite things, so you must infer only a finite 
maker, else the induction is imperfect. So you have 
but a finite God. Then these finite things, measured 
only by my experience, are imperfect things. Look at 
disorders in the frame of nature; the sufferings of ani- 
mals, the miseries of men; here are seeming imperfec- 
tions which the sensational philosopher staggers at. 
But to go on with this induction: from an imperfect 
work you must infer an imperfect author. So the God 
of sensationalism is not only finite, but imperfect even 
at that. But am I certain of the existence of the finite 
and imperfect God? The existence of the outward 
world is only an hypothesis, its laws hypothetical; all 
that depends on that or them is but an hypothesis, — 
the truth of your faculties, the forms of matter only 
an hypothesis: so the existence of God is not a cer- 
tainty; he is but our hypothetical God. But a hy- 
pothetical God is no God at all, not the living God : an 
imperfect God is no God at all, not the true God: a 
finite God is no God at all, not the absolute God. But 
this hypothetical, finite, imperfect God, where is he? 
In matter? No. In spirit? No. Does he act in 
matter or spirit? No, only now and then he did act 
by miracle ; he is outside of the world of matter and 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 19 



spirit. Then he is a non-resident, an absentee. A 
non-resident God is no God at all, not the all-present 
God." 

The above is the theory on which Mr. Hume con- 
structs his notion of God with the sensational philoso- 
phy, the inductive method; and he arrives at the hy- 
pothesis of a God, of a finite God, of an imperfect God, 
of a non-resident God. Beyond that the sensational 
philosophy as philosophy cannot go. 

But another party comes out of the same school to 
treat of religious matters ; they give their philosophy a 
vacation, and to prove the existence of God they go 
back to tradition, and say, " Once God revealed himself 
to the senses of men; they heard him, they saw. him, 
they felt him ; so to them the existence of God was not 
an induction, but a fact of observation ; they told it to 
others, through whom it comes to us ; we can say it is 
not a fact of observation but a fact of testimony." 

"Well," I ask, "are you certain then?" "Yes." 
" Quite sure ? Let me look. The man to whom God 
revealed himself may have been mistaken ; it may have 
been a dream, or a whim of his own, perhaps a fib; at 
any rate, he was not philosophically certain of the ex- 
istence of the outward world in general; how could he 
be of anything that took place in it? Next, the evi- 
dence which relates the transaction is not wholly re- 
liable : how do I know the books which tell of it tell the 
truth, that they were not fabricated to deceive me? 
All that rests on testimony is a little uncertain if it took 
place one or two thousand years ago; especially if I 
know nothing about the persons who testify or of that 
whereof they testify ; still more so if it be a thing, as 
you say, unphilosophical and even supernatural." 

So, then, the men who give a vacation to their 



20 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



philosophy have slurred the philosophical argument for 
a historical, the theological for the mythological, and 
have gained nothing except the tradition of God. By 
this process we are as far from the infinite God as be- 
fore, and have only arrived at the same point where 
the philosophy left us. 

The English Deists and the Socinians and others 
have approached religion with the sensational philoso- 
phy in their hands ; we are to learn of God philosoph- 
ically only by induction. And such is their God. They 
tell us that God is not knowable ; the existence of God 
is not a certainty to us ; it is a probability, a credibility, 
a possibility, — a certainty to none. You ask of sensa- 
tionalism, the greatest question, " Is there a God? " 
Answer: "Probably." "What is his character?" 
" Finite, imperfect." " Can I trust him? " " If we 
consult tradition it is creditable; if philosophy, possi- 
ble." 

2. The next great question in theology is that of the 
immortality of the soul. That is a universal hope of 
mankind; what does it rest on? Can I know my im- 
mortality? Here are two wings of the sensational 
school. The first says, " No, you cannot know it ; it is 
not true. Mind, soul, are two words to designate the 
result of organization. Man is not a mind, not a soul, 
not a free will. Man is a body, with blood, brains, 
nerves — nothing more ; the organization gone, all is 
gone." Now that is sound, logical, consistent; that 
was the conclusion of Hume, of many of the English 
Deists, and of many French philosophers in the last 
century ; they looked the fact in the face. But mor- 
tality, annihilation, is rather an ugly fact to look fairly 
in the face; but Mr. Hume and others have done it, 
and died brave with the sensational philosophy. 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 21 



The other wing of the sensational school gives its 
philosophy another vacation, rests the matter not on 
philosophy but history ; not on the theological but the 
mythological argument; on authority of tradition as- 
serting a phenomenon of human history, they try to 
establish the immortality of man by a single precedent, 
a universal law by the tradition of a single, empirical, 
contingent phenomenon. 

But I ask the sensational philosopher, " Is immortal- 
ity certain? " "No." "Probable?" "No." "Credi- 
ble?" "No." "Possible?" "Barely." I ask the 
traditional division, "Is immortality certain?" "No, 
it is left uncertain to try your faith." " Is it prob- 
able? " "Yes, there is one witness in six thousand 
years, one out of ten million times ten million." " Well, 
suppose it is probable ; is immortality, if it be sure to 
be a good thing, for me, for mankind? " " Not at 
all! There is nothing in the nature of man, nothing 
in the nature of the world, nothing in the nature of 
God to make you sure immortality will prove a bless- 
ing to mankind in general, to yourself in special ! " 
9 3. That is not quite all. Sensationalism does not 
allow freedom of the will; I say not, absolute free- 
dom — that belongs only to God, — but it allows no 
freedom of the will. See the result: all will is God's, 
all willing therefore is equally divine, and the worst 
vice of Pantheism follows. " But what is the will of 
God, is that free? " " Not at all; man is limited by 
the organization of his body, God by the organization 
of the universe." So God is not absolute God, not 
absolutely free; and as man's will is necessitated by 
God's, so God's will by the universe of matter; and 
only a boundless fate and pitiless encircles man and 
God. 



22 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



This is the philosophy of sensationalism; such its 
doctrine in physics, politics, ethics, religion. It leads 
to boundless uncertainty. Berkeley resolves the uni- 
verse into subjective ideas; no sensationalist knows a 
law in physics to be universal. Hobbes and Bentham 
and Condillac in politics know of no right but might; 
Priestley denies the spirituality of man, Collins and 
Edwards his liberty ; Dodwell affirms the materiality of 
the soul, and the mortality of all men not baptized ; 
Mandeville directly, and others indirectly, deny all nat- 
ural distinction between virtue and vice; Archdeacon 
Paley knows no motive but expediency. 

The materialist is puzzled with the existence of mat- 
ter; finds its laws general, not universal. The sensa- 
tional philosophy meets the politician and tells him 
through Rousseau 3 and others, " Society has no divine 
original, only the social compact; there is no natural 
justice, natural right; no right, but might; no greater 
good than the greatest good of the greatest number, 
and for that you may sacrifice all you will; to defend 
a constitution is better than to defend justice." In 
morals the sensational philosophy meets the young man 
and tells him all is uncertain ; he had better be content 
with things as they are, himself as he is; to protest 
against a popular wrong is foolish, to make money by 
it, or ease, or power, is a part of wisdom; only the 
fool is wise above what is written. It meets the young 
minister with its proposition that the existence of God is 
not a certainty, nor the immortality of the soul; that 
religion is only traditions of the elders and the keeping 
of a form. It says to him, " Look there, Dr. Hum- 
drum has got the tallest pulpit and the quietest pews, 
the fattest living and the cosiest nook in all the land; 
how do you think he won it? Why, by letting well- 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 



enough alone ; he never meddles with sin ; it would break 
his heart to hurt a sinner's feelings, — he might lose a 
parishioner ; he never dreams to make the world better, 
or better off. Go thou and do likewise." 

I come now to the other school. This is distin- 
guished by its chief metaphysical doctrine, that there is 
in the intellect (or consciousness), something that never 
was in the senses, to wit, the intellect (or conscious- 
ness) itself ; that man has faculties which transcend the 
senses; faculties which give him ideas and intuitions 
that transcend sensational experience; ideas whose 
origin is not from sensation, nor their proof from sen- 
sation. This is the transcendental school. They 
maintain that the mind (meaning thereby all which is 
not sense) is not a smooth tablet on which sensation 
writes its experience, but is a living principle which of 
itself originates ideas when the senses present the oc- 
casion; that, as there is a body with certain senses, so 
there is a soul or mind with certain powers which give 
the man sentiments and ideas. This school maintains 
that it is a fact of consciousness itself that there is in 
the intellect somewhat that was not first in the senses; 
and also that they have analyzed consciousness, and by 
the inductive method established the conclusion that 
there is a consciousness that never was sensation, never 
could be; that our knowledge is in part a 'priori; that 
we know, 1, certain truths of necessity; 2, certain 
truths of intuition, or spontaneous consciousness; 3, 
certain truths of demonstration, a voluntary conscious- 
ness ; all of these truths not dependent on sensation for 
cause, origin, or proof. Facts of observation, sensa- 
tional experience, it has in common with the other 
school. 



24 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



Transcendentalism, also, reports itself in the four 
great departments of human activity — in physics, poli- 
tics, ethics, religion. 

I. In physics it starts with the maxim that the senses 
acquaint us actually with body, and therefrom the 
mind gives us the idea of substance, answering to an 
obj ective reality. Thus is the certainty of the material 
world made sure of. Then a priori it admits the uni- 
formity of the action of nature; and its laws are a 
priori known to be universal, and not general alone. 
These two doctrines it finds as maxims resulting from 
the nature of man, facts given. Then it sets out with 
other maxims, first truths, which are facts of necessity, 
known to be such without experience. All the first 
truths of mathematics are of this character, e.g., that 
the whole is greater than a part. From these, by the 
deductive method, it comes at other facts, — facts of 
demonstration; these also are transcendental, that is, 
transcend the senses, transcend the facts of observa- 
tion. For example, the three angles of a triangle are 
equal to two right angles, — that is universally true; 
it is a fact of demonstration, and is a deduction from 
a first truth which is self-evident, a fact of necessity. 
But here the fact of demonstration transcends the fact 
of experience, philosophy is truer than sensation. The 
whole matter of geometry is transcendental. 

Transcendentalism does not take a few facts out of 
human history and say they are above nature ; all that 
appears in nature it looks on as natural, not super- 
natural, not subternatural ; so the distinction between 
natural and supernatural does not appear. By this 
means philosophy is often in advance of observation; 
e.g., Newton's law of gravitation, Kepler's third law, 
the theory that a diamond might be burned, and 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 25 



Berkeley's theory of vision, — these are interpretations 
of nature, but also anticipations of nature, as all true 
philosophy must be. Those men, however, did not 
philosophically know it to be so. So by an actual law 
of nature, not only are known facts explained, but the 
unknown anticipated. 

Evils have come from the transcendental method in 
physics ; men have scorned observation, have taken but 
a few facts from which to learn universal laws, and so 
failed of getting what is universal, even general. They 
have tried to divine the constitution of the world, to do 
without sensational experience in matters where knowl- 
edge depends on that and that is the sine qua non. The 
generalizations of the transcendental naturalists have 
been often hasty; they attempt to determine what na- 
ture shall be, not to learn what nature is. Thus a fa- 
mous philosopher said there are only seven primary 
planets in the solar system, and from the nature of 
things, a priori known, it is impossible there should be 
more. He had intelligence in advance of the mail ; but 
the mail did not confirm, for six months afterwards Dr. 
Piazzi discovered one of the asteroids; and in a few 
years three more were found, and now several more 
have been discovered, not to mention the new planet 
Neptune. Many of the statements of Schelling in 
physics are of this same character. 

II. In politics, transcendentalism starts not from ex- 
perience alone, but from consciousness ; not merely from 
human history, but also from human nature. It does 
not so much quote precedents, contingent facts of ex- 
perience, as ideas, necessary facts of consciousness. It 
only quotes the precedent to obtain or illustrate the 
idea. It appeals to a natural justice, natural right; 
absolute justice, absolute right. Now the source and 



26 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



original of this justice and right it finds in God — the 
conscience of God ; the channel through which we re- 
ceive this justice and right is our own moral sense, our 
conscience, which is our consciousness of the conscience 
of God. This conscience in politics and in ethics trans- 
cends experience, and a priori tells us of the just, the 
right, the good, the fair : not the relatively right alone, 
but absolute right also. As it transcends experience, 
so it anticipates history: and the ideal justice of con- 
science is juster than the empirical and contingent jus- 
tice actually exercised at Washington or at Athens, as 
the ideal circle is rounder than one the stone-cutter 
scratches on his rough seal. In transcendental poli- 
tics the question of expediency is always subordinate 
to the question of natural right : it asks not merely 
about the cost of a war. but its natural justice. It 
aims to organize the ideals of man's moral and social 
nature into political institutions : to have a government 
which shall completely represent the facts of man's so- 
cial consciousness so far as his nature is now developed. 
But as tliis development is progressive, so must govern- 
ment be : yet not progressive by revolution, by violence ; 
but by harmonious development, progressive by growth. 
The transcendental politician does not merely interpret 
history, and look back to Magna Charta and the Con- 
stitution; but into human nature, through to divine 
nature ; and so anticipates history, and in man and God 
finds the origin and primary source of all just policy, 
all right legislation. So looking he transcends his- 
tory. 

For example, the great political idea of America, the 
idea of the Declaration of Independence, is a composite 
idea made up of three simple ones : 1. Each man is en- 
dowed with certain unalienable rights. 2. In respect 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 27 

of these rights all men are equal. 3. A government is 
to protect each man in the entire and actual enjoyment 
of all the unalienable rights. Now the first two ideas 
represent ontological facts, facts of human conscious- 
ness; they are facts of necessity. The third is an 
idea derived from the two others, is a synthetic judg- 
ment a priori; it was not learned from sensational ex- 
perience ; there never was a government which did this, 
nor is there now. Each of the other ideas transcended 
history : every unalienable right has been alienated, still 
is; no two men have been actually equal in actual 
rights. Yet the idea is true, capable of proof by hu- 
man nature, not of verification by experience ; as true 
as the proposition that three angles of a triangle are 
equal to two right angles ; but no more capable of a 
sensational proof than that. The American Revolu- 
tion, with American history since, is an attempt to prove 
by experience this transcendental proposition, to organ- 
ize the transcendental idea of politics. The idea de- 
mands for its organization a democracy — a govern- 
ment of all, for all, and by all; a government by nat- 
ural justice, by legislation that is divine as much as a 
true astronomy is divine, legislation which enacts law 
representing a fact of the universe, a resolution of 
God. 

All human history said, " That cannot be." Human 
nature said, " It can, must, shall." The authors of 
the American Revolution, as well as the fathers of New 
England, were transcendentalists to that extent. 
America had such faith in the idea that she made the 
experiment in part. She will not quite give up yet. But 
there is so much of the sensational philosophy in her 
politics that in half the land the attempt is not made 
at all, the composite idea is denied, each of the simple 



28 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



ideas is also denied; and in the other half it is but 
poorly made. 

In France men have an idea yet more transcendental ; 
to the intellectual idea of liberty, and the moral idea of 
equality, they add the religious idea of fraternity, and 
so put politics and all legislation on a basis divine and 
incontestable as the truths of mathematics. They say 
that rights and duties are before all human laws and 
above all human laws. America says, " The Consti- 
tution of the United States is above the President, the 
Supreme Court above Congress." France says, " The 
Constitution of the Universe is above the Constitution 
of France." Forty million people say that. It tran- 
scends experience. The grandest thing a nation ever 
said in history. 

The transcendental politician does not say that might 
makes right, but that there is an immutable morality 
for nations as for men. Legislation must represent 
that, or the law is not binding on any man. By birth 
man is a citizen of the universe, subject to God; no 
oath of allegiance, no king, no parliament, no congress, 
no people, can absolve him from his natural fealty 
thereto, and alienate a man born to the rights, born to 
the duties, of a citizen of God's universe. Society, gov- 
ernment, politics come not from a social compact which 
men made and may unmake, but from a social nature 
of God's making; a nation is to be self-ruled by jus- 
tice. In a monarchy, the king holds power as a trust, 
not a right: in a democracy, the people have it as a 
right, the majority as a trust; but the minority have 
lost no right, can alienate none, delegate none beyond 
power of ultimate recall. A nation has a right to make 
just laws, binding because just. Justice is the point 
common to one man and the world of men, the balance- 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 29 



point. A nation is to seek the greatest good of all, not 
of the greatest number ; not to violate the constitution 
of the universe, not sacrifice the minority to the major- 
ity, nor one single man to the whole. But over all hu- 
man law God alone has eminent domain. 

Here too is a danger: the transcendental politician 
may seek to ignore the past, and scorn its lessons ; may 
take his own personal whims for oracles of human na- 
ture; and so he may take counsel from the selfishness 
of lazy men against the selfishness of active men, coun- 
sel from the selfishness of poor men against the selfish- 
ness of rich men, and think he hears the voice of jus- 
tice, or the reverse, as himself is rich or poor, active or 
idle; there is danger that he be rash and question as 
hastily in politics as in physics, and reckon without his 
host, to find that the scot is not free when the day of 
reckoning comes. 

III. In ethics. Transcendentalism affirms that man 
has moral faculties which lead him to j ustice and right, 
and by his own nature can find out what is right and 
just, and can know it and be certain of it. Right is to 
be done come what will come. I am not answerable for 
the consequences of doing right, only of not doing it, 
only of doing wrong. The conscience of each man is 
to him the moral standard ; so to mankind is the con- 
science of the race. In morals conscience is complete 
and reliable as the eye for colors, the ear for sounds, 
the touch and taste for their purposes. While experi- 
ence shows what has been or is, conscience shows what 
should be and shall. 

Transcendental ethics look not to the consequences of 
virtue, in this life or the next, as motive, therefore, to 
lead men to virtue. That is itself a good, an absolute 
good, to be loved not for what it brings, but is. It 



30 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



represents the even poise or balance-point between in- 
dividual and social development. To know what is 
right, I need not ask what is the current practice, what 
say the Revised Statutes, what said holy men of old, 
but what says conscience? what, God? The common 
practice, the Revised Statutes, the holy men of old are 
helps, not masters. I am to be co-ordinate with jus- 
tice. 

Conscience transcends experience, and not only ex- 
plains but anticipates that, and the transcendental sys- 
tem of morals is to be founded on human nature and 
absolute justice. 

I am to respect my own nature and be an individual 
man, — your nature and be a social man. Truth is to 
be told and asked, justice done and demanded, right 
claimed and allowed, affection felt and received. The 
will of man is free; not absolutely free as God's, but 
partially free, and capable of progress to yet higher 
degrees of freedom. 

Do you ask an example of a transcendental moralist ? 
A scheme of morals was once taught to mankind wholly 
transcendental, the only such scheme that I know. In 
that was no alloy of expediency, no deference to experi- 
ence, no crouching behind a fact of human history to 
hide from ideas of human nature; a scheme of morals 
which demands that you be you — I, I ; balances in- 
dividualism and socialism on the central point of jus- 
tice ; which puts natural right, natural duty, before all 
institutions, all laws, all traditions. You will pardon 
me for mentioning the name of Jesus of Nazareth in 
a lecture. But the whole of human history did not 
justify his ethics; only human nature did that. He- 
brew ethics, faulty in detail, were worse in method and 
principle, referring all to an, outward command, not 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 31 



an inward law. Heathen ethics less faulty in detail, 
not less in principles, referred all to experience and 
expediency, knew only what was, and what worked well 
here or there; not what ought to be, and worked well 
anywhere and forever. He transcended that, taught 
what should be, must, shall, and forever. 

The danger is that the transcendental moralist shall 
too much abhor the actual rules of morality; where 
much is bad and ill-founded, shall deem all worthless. 
Danger, too, that he take a transient impulse, personal 
and fugitive, for a universal law; follow a passion for 
a principle, and come to naught; surrender his man- 
hood, his free will to his unreflecting instinct, become 
subordinate thereto. Men that are transcendental-mad 
we have all seen in morals ; to be transcendental-wise, 
sober, is another thing. The notion that every impulse 
is to be followed, every instinct totally obeyed, will put 
man among the beasts, not angels. 

IV. In religion. Transcendentalism admits a re- 
ligious faculty, element, or nature in man, as it admits 
a moral, intellectual and sensational faculty, — that 
man by nature is a religious being as well as moral, in- 
tellectual, sensational; that this religious faculty is ade- 
quate to its purposes and wants, as much so as the oth- 
ers, as the eye acquainting us with light ; and that this 
faculty is the source of religious emotions, of the senti- 
ments of adoration, worship. Through this we have 
consciousness of God as through the senses consciousness 
of matter. In connection with reason it gives us the 
primary ideas of religion, ideas which transcend ex- 
perience. 

Now the transcendental philosophy legitimates the 
ideas of religion by reference to human nature. Some 
of them it finds truths of necessity, which cannot be 



32 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



conceived of as false or unreal without violence to rea- 
son ; some it finds are truths of consciousness, — of 
spontaneous consciousness, or intuition ; some, truths of 
voluntary consciousness, or demonstration, inductive or 
deductive. Such ideas, capable of this legitimation, 
transcend experience, require and admit no further 
proof; as true before experience as after; true before 
time, after time, eternally ; absolutely true. On that 
rock transcendentalism founds religion, sees its founda- 
tion, and doubts no more of religious truths than of 
the truths of mathematics. All the truths of religion 
it finds can be verified in consciousness to-day, what 
cannot is not religion. But it does not neglect experi- 
ence. In human history it finds confirmations, illustra- 
tions, of the ideas of human nature, for history repre- 
sents the attempt of mankind to develop human nature. 
So then as transcendentalism in philosophy legitimates 
religion by a reference to truths of necessity, to truths 
of consciousness, it illustrates religion by facts of ob- 
servation, facts of testimony. 

By sensationalism religious faith is a belief, more or 
less strange, in a probability, a credibility, a possibil- 
ity. By transcendentalism religious faith is the nor- 
mal action of the whole spiritual nature of man, which 
gives him certain knowledge of a certainty not yet at- 
tainable by experience ; where understanding ends, faith 
begins, and out-travels the understanding. Religion 
is natural to man, is justice, piety — free justice, free 
piety, free thought. The form thereof should fit the 
individual; hence there will be a unity of substance, 
diversity of form. So a transcendental religion de- 
mands a transcendental theology. 

1. The transcendental philosophy appears in its doc- 
trine of God. The idea of God is a fact given in the 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 33 

consciousness of man; consciousness of the infinite is 
the condition of a consciousness of the finite. I learn 
of a finite thing by sensation, I get an idea thereof ; 
at the same time the idea of the infinite unfolds in me. 
I am not conscious of my own existence except as a 
finite existence, that is, as a dependent existence; and 
the idea of the infinite, of God on whom I depend, comes 
at the same time as the logical correlative of a knowl- 
edge of myself. So the existence of God is a cer- 
tainty ; I am as certain of that as of my own existence. 
Indeed without that knowledge I know nothing. Of 
this I am certain, — I am ; but of this as certain, — God 
is; for if I am, and am finite and dependent, then this 
presupposes the infinite and independent. So the idea 
of God is a 'priori; rests on facts of necessity, on facts 
of consciousness. 

Then transcendentalism uses the other mode, the 
a posteriori. Starting with the infinite, it finds signs 
and proofs of him everywhere, and gains evidence of 
God's existence in the limits of sensational observation ; 
the thing refers to its maker, the thought to the mind, 
the effect to the cause, the created to the creator, the 
finite to the infinite; at the end of my arms are two 
major prophets, ten minor prophets, each of them 
pointing the transcendental philosopher to the infinite 
God, of which he has consciousness without the logical 
process of induction. 

Then the character of God as given in the idea of 
him, given in consciousness, — that represents God as a 
being, not with the limitations of impersonality (that 
is to confound God with matter) ; not with the limita- 
tions of personality (that confounds him with man) ; 
but God with no limitations, infinite, absolute; looked 
at from sensation, infinite power; from thought, in- 
1—3 



34 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



finite intellect; from the moral sense, infinite conscience ; 
from the emotional, infinite affection; from the re- 
ligious, infinite soul; from all truth, the whole human 
nature names him Infinite Father! 

God is immanent in matter, so it is; immanent in 
spirit, so it is. He acts also as God in matter and 
spirit, acts perfectly; laws of matter or of spirit are 
modes of God's acting, being; as God is perfect, so 
the mode of his action is perfect and unchangeable. 
Therefore, as God is ever in matter and spirit, and 
where God is is wholly God active, so no intervention is 
possible. God cannot come where he already is, so no 
miracle is possible. A miracle a parte humana is a vio- 
lation of what is a law to man ; a miracle to God — a 
parte divind — is a violation of what is law to God : the 
most extraordinary things that have been seem miracles 
a parte humana, — laws, a parte divina. But though 
God is immanent in matter and in spirit, he yet tran- 
scends both matter and spirit, has no limitations. In- 
deed all perfection of immanence and transcendence 
belong to him, — the perfection of existence, infinite 
being; the perfection of space, immensity; the perfec- 
tion of time, eternity; of power, all-mightiness; of 
mind, all-knowingness ; of affection, all-lovingness ; of 
will, absolute freedom, absolute justice, absolute right. 
His providence is not merely general, but universal, 
so special in each thing. Hence the universe partakes 
of his perfection, is a perfect universe for the end he 
made it for. 

2. The doctrine of the soul. This teaches that man 
by nature is immortal. This doctrine it legitimates: 1. 
By reference to facts of consciousness that men feel in 
general; in the heart it finds the longing after immor- 
tality, in the mind the idea of immortality, in religious 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 35 



consciousness the faith in immortality, in human nature 
altogether the strong confidence and continued trust 
therein. 2. It refers also to the nature of God, and 
reasons thus: God is all-powerful and can do the best; 
all-wise, and can know it; all-good, and must will it; 
immortality is the best, therefore it is. All this an- 
ticipates experience a priori. 3. It refers to the gen- 
eral arrangements of the world, where everything gets 
ripe, matures, but man. In the history of mankind 
it finds confirmation of this doctrine, for every rude 
race and all civilized tribes have been certain of im- 
mortality ; but here and there are men, sad and unfor- 
tunate, who have not by the mind legitimated the facts 
of spontaneous consciousness, whose nature the sensa- 
tional philosophy has made blind, and they doubt or 
deny what nature spontaneously affirms. 

The nature of God being such, he immanent and 
active in matter and spirit ; the nature of man such, 
so provided with faculties to love the true, the just, 
the fair, the good, — it follows that man is capable of 
inspiration from God, communion with God; not in 
raptures, not by miracle, but by the sober use of all his 
faculties, moral, intellectual, afFectional, religious. The 
condition thereof is this, the faithful use of human 
nature, the coincidence of man's will with God's. In- 
spiration is proportionate to the man's quantity of 
being, made up of a constant and a variable, his quan- 
tity of gifts, his quantity of faithful use. In this way 
transcendentalism can legitimate the highest inspira- 
tion, and explain the genius of God's noblest son, not 
as monstrous, but natural. In religion as in all things 
else there has been a progressive development of man- 
kind. The world is a school, prophets, saints, saviours, 
mien more eminently gifted and faithful, and so most 



36 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



eminently inspired, — they are the school-masters to 
lead men up to God. 

There is danger in this matter also lest the tran- 
scendental religionist should despise the past and its 
sober teachings, should take a fancy personal and fugi- 
tive for a fact of universal consciousness, embrace a 
cloud for an angel, and miserably perish. It is not for 
man to transcend his faculties, to be above himself, 
above reason, conscience, affection, religious trust. It 
is easy to turn off from these and be out of reason, con- 
science, affection, religion — beside himself. Madmen 
in religion are not rare, enthusiasts, fanatics. 

The sensational philosophy, with all its evils, has done 
tHe world great service. It has stood up for the body, 
for common sense, protested against spiritual tyranny, 
against the spiritualism of the middle ages which 
thought the senses wicked and the material world pro- 
fane. To sensationalism we are indebted for the great 
advance of mankind in physical science, in discovery, 
arts, mechanics, and for many improvements in govern- 
ment. Some of its men are great names, — Bacon, 
Locke, Newton. Let us do them no dishonor ; they saw 
what they could, told it; they saw not all things that 
are, saw some which are not. In our day no one of 
them would be content with the philosophy they all 
agreed in then. Hobbes and Hume have done us ser- 
vice; the Socinians, Priestley, Collins, Berkeley, Dod- 
well, Mandeville, Edwards. To take the good and 
leave the ill is our part; but the doubts which this 
philosophy raises, the doubt of Hume, the doubt of 
Hobbes, of the English Deists in general, do not get 
answered by this philosophy. For this we have weap- 
ons forged by other hands, tempered in another spring. 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 



37 



Transcendentalism has a work to do, to show that 
physics, politics, ethics, religion rest on facts of neces- 
sity, facts of intuition, facts of demonstration, and 
have their witness and confirmation in facts of observa- 
tion. It is the work of transcendentalism to give us 
politics which represent God's thought of a state, — 
the whole world, each man free ; to give us morals which 
leave the man a complete individual, no chord rent from 
the human harp, — yet complete in his social character, 
no string discordant in the social choir ; to give us reli- 
gion worthy of God and man, — free goodness, free 
piety, free thought. That is not to be done by talking 
at random, not by idleness, not by railing at authority, 
calumniating the past or the present ; not by idle brains 
with open mouth, who outrage common sense; but by 
diligent toil, brave discipline, patience to wait, patience 
to work. Nothing comes of nothing, foolishness of 
fools; but something from something, wise thought 
from thinking men ; and of the wise thought comes a 
lovely deed, life, laws, institutions for mankind. 

The problem of transcendental philosophy is no less 
than this, to revise the experience of mankind and try 
its teachings by the nature of mankind; to test ethics 
by conscience, science by reason; to try the creeds of 
the churches, the constitutions of the states by the con- 
stitution of the universe; to reverse what is wrong, 
supply what is wanting, and command the just. To 
do this in a nation like ours, blinded still by the sensa- 
tional philosophy, devoted chiefly to material interests, 
its politics guided by the madness of party more than 
sober reason ; to do tins in a race like the Anglo-Saxon, 
which has an obstinate leaning to a sensational philoso- 
phy, which loves facts of experience, not ideas of con- 
sciousness, and believes not in the First-Fair, First- 



38 MATTER AND SPIRIT 

Perfect, First-Good, is no light work; not to be taken 
in hand by such as cannot bear the strife of tongues, 
the toil, the heat, the war of thought ; not to be accom- 
plished by a single man, however well-born and well- 
bred ; not by a single age and race. It has little of 
history behind, for this philosophy is young. It looks 
to a future, a future to be made ; a church whose creed 
is truth, whose worship love; a society full of industry 
and abundance, full of wisdom, virtue, and the poetry 
of life ; a state with unity among all, with freedom for 
each; a church without tyranny, a society without 
ignorance, want, or crime, a state without oppression; 
yes, a world with no war among the nations to consume 
the work of their hands, and no restrictive policy to 
hinder the welfare of mankind. That is the human 
dream of the transcendental philosophy. Shall it ever 
become a fact? History says, No ; human nature says, 
Yes. 



II 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS AND RE- 
LIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS 

Religion is one of the most important of the concerns 
of man. It comes from the deepest and most powerful 
of all our spiritual faculties. More than any one ele- 
ment of consciousness it helps mould the character of 
the individual and the nation. The ideas we form of 
God, of man, of the relation between them, of the mode 
of learning our religious duty, and of our final con- 
dition in the future world — these affect all the con- 
cerns of the nation. For they found institutions which 
shape the politics, the business, and the literature of 
the people, so ultimately determining their condition 
for weal and woe. The theology of Spain is one of 
the prime causes of her ruin ; American slavery not only 
has one of its roots in the selfishness of the planter 
and the politician, but also another under the meeting- 
house, where it is watered by the eaves-droppings of 
the popular theology. At the opening of ai new place 
for religious meetings, which is already consecrated 
thereunto by your presence and the prayer of your 
heart, I ask your attention to some thoughts on the rela- 
tion between the theological institutions and the reli- 
gious consciousness of the American people. 

In the historical progress of many thousand years, 
out of material nature man has developed all the visible 
property of the ten hundred million inhabitants of 
earth. Thence come the pastures, farms, and gardens ; 
the houses, markets, temples, roads of earth, wood, 

39 



40 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



stone, or iron ; the towns and cities, the forts and fleets ; 
all the tools of industry or destruction ; the instruments 
for use; the ornaments for beauty. All these are 
of human creation — thoughts organized in things. 
Man's mind is their father; the world of matter is the 
mother thereof. God made us spirit ; he gives us mat- 
ter, and thence have we made all these things which 
constitute the world of art. 

This world of art, thought organized in matter, con- 
tains at present two parts : First, What we inherit 
— our traditional part ; and second, What we create — 
our original part. The traditional requires to be 
looked over anew. Some of it is of present value and 
will last longer, perhaps for ever; some of it is no 
more fit for present use, but must be left to perish, 
the new and better taking its place. When Xerxes 
invaded Europe draw-bows were his best weapons of 
attack, his arrows darkened the air of Thermopylae; 
now the allied armies at Sebastopol have not a bow- 
string in all their scientific camp. Once a hatchet of 
stone was mankind's best tool for creative industry ; now 
axes of steel have driven the tomahawk out of all 
markets. 

All this world of art shares the progress of man; 
becomes greater in quantity, nicer in quality. It is 
amenable to perpetual improvement; is revised con- 
tinually, the good kept, the useless left to perish. 
Time winnows all harvests with rugged breath — great 
clouds of chaff go flying all abroad, while the useful 
grain is thankfully gathered up. The highway of 
history is marked by works abandoned, tools that have 
served out their time, superseded, disbanded, left alone. 

This all men agree to. None refuses bread because 
his father once fed on acorns and beech-nuts; no 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 41 



woman disdains to ride well-clad in a railroad car, 
because her mothers only walked, and that barefoot 
and naked. And what an odds between the savage's 
world of art and yours to-day ; between this " Indian 
country " of 1555, and the Pennsylvania of 1855 ! All 
this difference comes from the civilized thought mixed 
with the savage world of matter. The advance is pro- 
gression by experiment, wherein many attempts fail. 
Of all the inventions recorded in the Patent Office, how 
few are adopted into permanent use! the rest are 
winnowed off as chaff. But without the straw there 
could have been no corn. 

In his historic progress, out of human nature man 
develops feelings, thoughts, and actions, and thence 
forms institutions, art, languages, laws, sciences, states, 
societies, and the like. All these together make up the 
world of institutions. A machine is a contrivance of 
thought organized in matter; an institution a contri- 
vance of thought organized in man. Of each there are 
many forms. 

All the feelings, all the thoughts, all the actions, 
with all the manifold institutions of these thousand 
million men now on earth, have grown out of human 
nature, and correspond to the degree of man's pro- 
gressive culture thereof ; just as all the vegetation of 
the earth has grown out of its soil, and represents its 
climate, the richness of the ground and the advance 
of the season, all varying continually. Since the world 
was created all vegetation has been domestic develop- 
ment, not foreign importation; not a camomile flower, 
not an apple-seed has been brought in from abroad or 
could have been. These institutions have come partly 
from the instincts of men acting blindly, not knowing 



42 



MATTER AXD SPIRIT 



whither they went; partly also from deliberate affection 
and conscious will, men setting a purpose and then 
devising means for that end. But all these institutions 
are of human origin, as much so as the machines : the 
family and the state not less than the axe of stone or 
iron, the farm or the railroad. 

In our world of institutions there are also two parts 
— the inherited, and the newly created. Each par- 
takes of the character of the age whence it came. The 
traditional must be revised ; some of it is good for the 
present, nay, for all time; some must be left to perish. 
The original will be winnowed in the same way bv such 
as come after us. Once the polygamous family of the 
savage, with his captive wives whom force subordinated 
to him but no mutual love conjoined, was the best 
domestic institution of mankind. A military despotism 
was once the best tool man had devised for political 
work. Where are such things now? Human history 
is marked by the institutions cast off and left behind. 
What once is borne as the banner in front of humanity, 
the symbol of its purpose and the gathering point of 
its heroes, is one day thrown down in the dust as a 
worthless rag. and trodden bv the rear-guard, nay, bv 
the very stragglers of mankind. How many " settled 
opinions " of philosophers have perished : how much 
" immortal literature " has gone to the ground : while 
laws of Medes and Persians have been repealed by the 
supreme court of time, and become obsolete and for- 
gotten by humanity. You may trace man's path 
through time as space by what he abandons. Ancient 
arrows and pestles are turned up by the fanners 
plough, ancient policies and philosophies by the spade 
of the scholar: forms of the family or of the state 
successively built up out of human nature and sue- 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 43 



cessively crumbling down. In two thousand years the 
most progressive portion of the Anglo-Saxon tribe has 
left behind it absolute monarchy, limited monarchy, 
and aristocracy. In thirty or forty thousand years 
how much has the human race passed by ! All these 
institutions, like the machines of the world of art, are 
amenable to perpetual improvement, subject to con- 
tinual revision in the progressive development of man- 
kind. You and I are not ashamed of a democracy be- 
cause our fathers once swore allegiance to William the 
Conqueror, or patiently bore the yoke of Henry VIII. 

What a difference between the savage's world of 
institutions and that of the civilized man ; between this 
" Indian country " of 1555, and the Pennsylvania of 
to-day, with your world of institutions, arts, sciences, 
literature — domestic, social, and political customs. 
But all of this comes out of human nature, one attempt 
made after the other, many failing. Here also the 
advance is through progression by experiment. Look 
over the seventy volumes of statutes of the British 
realm — through the history of medicine or machinery 
— see how much has become worthless, obsolete, and 
worn-out: laws lying there like spent bullets flattened 
out and rusted through; engines exploded long ago; 
medicines which humanity no longer swallows down; 
these are the potsherds and arrow-heads which mark the 
track of mankind. Half the weeds of our fields were 
brought here as herbs indispensable to man. 

In an institution the chief thing to look at is the idea 
it represents, the primordial thought; for that is the 
human mould in which the human substance of the insti- 
tution is cast, and as the sheep are filled "according to 
their pasture," so the institution is like the idea which 



44 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



controls its shape. In thought you melt away all the 
matter of the solar system, conceiving of the sun and 
planets as mere mathematic points of force, and by 
this abstraction you can easier understand the mechan- 
ism of the heavens. In like manner, from institutions 
you may dissolve away the men who form them or 
are formed thereby, and consider only the ideas they 
represent, and by this abstraction the easier and better 
understand the mechanism of humanity. 

In all nations above the mere naked wild man, you 
find sentiments, ideas, and actions, which have come 
from the religious element in human nature. Let the 
word religion stand here for the service and worship 
which man pays to his conception of God, whatever 
that may be. Theology is the science of religion. 
The intellect, reflecting on facts of religious conscious- 
ness, or on observations thereof in others, produces 
theology, just as it produces science from facts of 
consciousness and from facts of observation in the 
material world. The ideas which men form on what 
pertains to religion get organized into peculiar 
forms. 

Let me call them ecclesiastical institutions. They 
are different in the various nations, and vary in the 
same nation with its condition and culture. For, as 
the products of vegetation are not the same in any 
two zones, or counties, but follow the geographical 
peculiarities of climate, position, soil, and the like, so 
the ecclesiastical institutions — a product of the reli- 
gious element — in form and substance depend upon 
the ethnographic peculiarities of the race, the tribe, 
and nation, and vary with the degree of civilization 
and general culture. So the theological ideas of 
various nations, with the ecclesiastical institutions 



RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS 45 



th'ence arising, differ as much as the faunas and floras 
of various countries. 

These ecclesiastical institutions, including therein 
all the emotions, ideas, and actions they embody, are 
of human origin. They are the contrivances which 
man makes for his purpose, his machinery of religion ; 
the substance and the form are alike human. But as 
the object of religious reverence is divine, not human, 
so it comes to be alleged that these institutions come 
down straightway from God. Astronomy deals with 
the stars, and navigation with the deep: shall it then 
be said that Newton's Principia and Blunt's Coast 
Pilot came miraculous, the one from the heavens and 
the other from the sea? It were not more absurd. It 
does not appear that any foreign element of thought 
has been added to man's consciousness since the first 
creation. There is perpetual development from within, 
no importation from another sphere. As the world 
of material nature was fashioned as a perfect means 
for a perfect purpose, so the world of human nature 
is equally adequate for its Creator's design, neither 
getting nor needing additions from any foreign 
source. All that is in human consciousness originated 
there, from man's contact with his surroundings, and 
from himself. 

There is one great idea common to all ecclesiastical 
institutions: the idea of God, the divine above the 
human. All nations, above the wild man, agree in 
this point — There is a God; but differ in the char- 
acter and conduct they ascribe to him. They agree 
as to his being, and differ as to his being this or that. 
For, as the plants of Nova Zembla differ from those 
<pf Sumatra, not less do the theological ideas of the 



46 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



savage differ from those of the civilized and enlight- 
ened. There are zones of religious as of material 
vegetation, arctic and tropical. 

In ecclesiastical institutions there is something which 
is general human, and belongs to all forms of religion 
coming from nations in that stage of development; 
and also something else peculiar to the particular 
people. So all men agree in what makes them men, 
but differ in what makes one John and the other 
James. In the last four or five thousand years there 
have been seven great forms of religion, or ecclesiasti- 
cal institutions, in the world, — the Vedantic, Old 
Indian of South Asia; the Hebrew; the Classic, Greek 
and Roman; the Zoroastrian; the Buddhistic; the 
Christian ; and the Mahometan, which have had a wide 
and deep influence on the welfare of mankind. They 
all have some things in common, while in others they 
widely differ. 

The religious element — call it the soul — begins 
its activity with emotions, mere feelings; these lead 
to thoughts, and they to actions; and thus, little by 
little, ecclesiastical institutions get formed, the human 
instrument or machinery for expressing the idea, em- 
bodying the action, and thus attaining the object of 
the religious emotion. These institutions, like all 
others, are of gradual formation. Their influence, 
for good or ill, depends on the character of the idea 
embodied therein, and on their fitness for the special 
nation who accepts it. It is machinery in the human 
mill. When an ecclesiastical institution is fixed, and 
incapable of progressive amendment to suit the ad- 
vancing consciousness of the people, it is a curse; and 
the nation which continually submits to it is first 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 47 



hindered and finally destroyed thereby. But while 
nations perish, mankind still survives; as the ocean 
endures for ever, while wave after wave rises succes- 
sive and successive falls. If Spain be spiritually dead 
— the once noble tree killed by clipping its limbs, 
and girdling its trunk, and boring into its root — 
other trees spring out of the procreant earth and grow 
to mighty columns of green beauty. A living and 
progressive nation is continually altering its ecclesias- 
tic institutions, as it improves its other machinery, 
industrial or political. Thus three thousand years 
ago the ecclesiastic institutions of the Teutonic people 
represented the old pagan ideas of divinity, and suited 
the worship of Thor, Odin, or Hertha; the Teutons 
outgrew this form of religion, and accepted the Roman 
Christian ideas, with the Roman Christian institu- 
tions; these were at length passed by, and now most 
of the Teutons have accepted the German Christian 
ideas with the corresponding institutions, and are pre- 
paring for another progressive step. 

Now in our present ecclesiastical institutions there 
is an inherited and a newly-created part ; the old must 
be revised, for while it contains what is true, and, 
therefore, permanently good and fair, it has also 
things good for once but not good for ever, and others 
not good at all. What fits must be kept, the rest cast 
off. For the ecclesiastical institutions, like all other 
human contrivances, are amenable to perpetual im- 
provement, and must be made to represent the total 
development of the nation which accepts and retains 
them. 

There are now three great ecclesiastical institutions 
which occupy the civilized and half-civilized parts of 



48 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



the world, — the Buddhistic, the Christian, the Ma- 
hometan. These represent the three great world- 
sects into which the foremost nations are now divided. 
The Christian is made up of Hebrew, Zoroastrian, and 
classic elements; it contains also some things derived 
from Jesus of Nazareth, and many more from Paul 
of Tarsus, who systematized what Jesus begun; and 
yet others, added from various sources since his time. 

There are two things which pass under the name 
of " Christianity." One is natural piety and morality 
— the love of God and the keeping of his command- 
ments; I will here call this the Christian religion. 
The other is a scheme of theological doctrines and 
opinions which from time to time have accumulated, 
and are now brought down to us with numerous ecclesi- 
astical ceremonies ; I will call this the Christian the- 
ology, though in many important matters it differs 
widely from the recorded doctrines and opinions of 
Jesus himself. 

It is this theology which shapes the ecclesiastical 
institutions of Christendom; it is the idea whereof 
they are the embodiment, the substance to which they 
are the form. When priests and ministers speak of 
" Christianity " they commonly mean the " Christian 
theology," not the " Christian religion." Men who 
believe this theology and comply with its circumja- 
cent ceremonies are called " Christians ; " not such as 
have merely the " Christian religion," who are called 
only " amiable men," " deists," " infidels," and the 
like. To be " converted " is to accept this theology 
with its ceremonies. When it is said, " Christianity 
frees the slave, elevates woman, humanizes man, saves 
the soul," the meaning is that this is done by the 
Christian theology. 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 49 

Now to understand the good and ill of these institu- 
tions, their relation to the religious consciousness of 
the American people, and their consequent influence 
on our present condition and future development, 
let us look at some of the chief ideas therein — that 
is, at some of the great theological doctrines of Chris- 
tendom itself. To do this I will treat of Christen- 
dom as a whole, looking only at the great bulk of 
Christians, and neglecting certain small and excep- 
tional bodies who reject more or less of those ideas, 
and whose power is only infinitesimal. For I do not 
care to inquire after the fate of each single bucketful 
of water ladled out to moisten a lady's rose-bush, but 
to learn the general direction and current of the great 
stream of influence which comes from these institu- 
tions. 

Dissolving away all accidental matter, I will look 
only at some substantive ideas which are qualitatively 
common to all Christendom after making the excep- 
tions above referred to. I omit also many excellent 
doctrines which the Christian has in common with the 
other world-sects, and some peculiar to itself, and ask 
your attention to the five great false ideas of this 
theology which are embodied in the ecclesiastical institu- 
tions of Christendom. 

I. Of the false idea of God. — The ecclesiastical 
idea of God represents him as deficient in all the great 
essentials of Deity except eternal self -existence. He 
is imperfect in power, in wisdom, in justice, in benevo- 
lence, and in holiness — fidelity to himself. 

1. Imperfect in power. — He cannot accomplish 
his purpose; the devil, his perpetual enemy, routs him 
in every great battle, and at last will fill an immense 
1—4 



50 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



hell with the damned, the pick and flower of all the 
world, who stream thither in vast crowds, overflowing 
the broad way to destruction, while the narrow road 
which leads the elect to salvation is thinly dotted 
" with here and there a traveller." 

2. Imperfect in wisdom. — He does not know how 
his own contrivance will work until set a-going; and 
then its wheels do not run in human history as in the 
divine head. Thus the " Fall " of Adam is as much 
a surprise to God as to man; only the serpent under- 
stood it beforehand. The wickedness of the human 
race, both before and after the " flood," is an aston- 
ishment to God, who repented that he had made man, 
the work proving so defective and even pernicious. 
God learns by experiments, whereof many turn out 
failures; so he must destroy his work and try again, 
not always succeeding the second or third time — nor 
even in the end. 

3. Imperfect in justice. — He often violates the 
moral sense which he has put into human nature, is 
deceitful and intensely cruel: witness the command to 
Abraham for sacrificing Isaac, to Moses to butcher the 
Canaanites ; witness the triumph of the " Lamb " in 
the book of Revelation, with his oriental army of two 
hundred million cavalry, destroying a third part of 
the human race in one quarter of the world, and the 
rest of his military servants in the western quarter, 
in one campaign making a spot of blood on the ground 
two hundred miles in its shortest diameter and thirty- 
six inches deep. 

All this is represented, not as an incident in the his- 
torical development of man, or as instrumental to 
some advantage for any one, but only as a voluntary 
purpose in the consciousness of God, an end in it- 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 51 



self, the calculated achievement of his spontaneous 
providence. 

4. Imperfect in his benevolence. — For while he 
loves some he hates more, and continually creates men 
fore-doomed to eternal damnation. He is a jealous 
God, and gives 44 salvation " in the stingiest way. 
Nay, voluntarily and on purpose, he created the devil, 
who is now a being absolutely evil. Of course he cre- 
ated him out of the absolute evil which was in himself ; 
there could be no other source for this material, for 
God's nature is a terminality of beginning as well as 
his purpose a finality of ending — from an evil motive, 
for an evil purpose, and as an appropriate means 
thereunto. 

The devil is not merely a mistake and a failure, but 
an intended marplot of the universe, a premeditated 
contradiction. This fly in the ointment of the apothe- 
cary does no good in heaven, earth, or hell, and is de- 
vised and intended for no good, helping neither any 
benevolent purpose of God, nor the development of 
man. 

5. Imperfect in his holiness. — He does not keep 
the integrity of his consciousness, but wilfully vio- 
lates his own better feelings. Thus he miraculously 
hardens Pharaoh's heart, bewildering his counsels; 
sends an evil spirit to Saul, and stealthily excites 
David to number the people of Israel that he might 
take vengeance upon them, thus deceiving with inspira- 
tion ! 

It is plain that no Christian sect conceives of God 
as infinitely perfect in power, wisdom, justice, benevo- 
lence, and holiness. In their general description they 
all claim absolute perfection for their notion of Deity ; 
in their specific details of character and conduct they 



52 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



all deny it. The idea of the infinitely perfect God is 
foreign to the Christian theology. 

II. Of the false idea of man. — Man was created 
" in the image and likeness of God," but so badly 
made that he became an easy prey to the devil. His 
first step was a " fall," which so damaged his " na- 
ture " that ever since it has been " corrupt ; " his 
action, even his thoughts " only evil continually." 
His body is damaged, and unnaturally mortal, at 
present not even living out a tithe of the original 
years of even fallen man; his mind — and he cannot 
distinguish between truth and error, unless a miracle 
intervene, nor always then ; his conscience — he does 
not know good from evil; his heart — which is per- 
verse and desperately wicked ; his soul — that of itself 
would neither love nor even know God, or its own 
immortality. He is " depraved," if not " totally " — 
which is the instantial opinion of Christendom — at 
least " generally " and " effectually," so that he is 
substantially good for nothing; in his flesh and his 
spirit there is " no good thing ! " He is immortal, so 
much the worse for him! What avails it to increase 
the quantity of human life while the quality is so bad 
and the ultimate ruin made sure of beforehand? 
Damnation alone waits for the souls of the mass of 
men. He can find out nothing certain about God; ail 
the holy men who taught new religious truth to man- 
kind did not actively learn the truth as men, but only 
passively received it from God, as bare pipes through 
which his " Revelation " flowed forth : they did not 
normally find out a truth, but God miraculously gave 
them a commandment. 

All the rest of God's works are " perfect ; " they 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 53 



turn out as he meant, and are adequate means for his 
purposes; but man is a failure — this wheel does not 
run well in the universal mill, nor accomplish the pur- 
pose it was intended for! Nay, with all manner of 
watching and mending, and lubricating with miracles, 
it works very ill, and God is sorry he made man on 
the earth, and it grieves him at his heart! Man's 
hand is perfect, his eye, his foot — the nervous system 
is complete and perfect as the solar system; but his 
" nature," his " heart," is evil, and only evil, and that 
continually ! 

III. Of the false idea of the relation be- 
tween God and man. — There is an antagonism 
between the two, total and eternal — their " natures " 
irreconcilably conflicting; depraved man at variance 
with imperfect God! History is chiefly the record 
of this mutual hostility and conflict, the story of man's 
rebellion and God's vengeance therefor! Nay, the 
earth is a monument of the never-ending battle; the 
earthquakes and whirlwinds of its great elements, the 
thorns and thistles of vegetation, the strife of beasts 
of prey, and the " minor note " of the birds, all are 
alike the consequence and the memorial of this prime- 
val but perpetual falling out between man and God. 
Eternity will repeat the antagonism, for as God once 
swept off procreant mankind by a transient flood of 
water, sparing but eight from a world of men, so at 
last he will ruin the majority of the whole human 
race in a permanent deluge of fire, wherein the million 
generations of men, each millions of millions strong, 
shall " perish everlastingly," in never-ending fiery rot, 
while he and the devil alone shall take delight in this 
flaming massacre, this funeral pile of humanity, where 



54 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



the worm of agony dieth not in the fire of his wrath, 
which is not quenched for ever and ever. So perish- 
able earth and ever-enduring hell are alike mementoes 
of this antagonistic relation; and God and his enemy, 
the Creator and the destroyer, are made one in their 
delight over the torment of the human race; the devil 
gladdened that they fall and are 44 lost " from heaven, 
God rejoicing that they are damned and 44 found " in 
hell! 

All the rest of man's history is but an exception ; 
sin, misery, damnation are instantial, the general rule. 
A golden thread of divine grace runs through the 
human web, whereon are strung a few pearls of great 
price — patriarchs and prophets, saints and the elect 
— a fleck of white in a whole field of sackcloth, which 
44 poor human nature " continually weaves up, and 
dyes Egyptian black in the gall of inherited sin, the 
colour fast set and bitten in by the necessitated guilt 
of the individual. 

In the ecclesiastical conception of God there is a 
deep back-ground of evil. Now and then the myste- 
rious cloud is miraculously lifted and lets men see the 
mountain summits of anger, vengeance, jealousy, and 
hate, and imagine the whole chain of malignity, Andes 
and Himmalayas of wrath, hid underneath the veil. 
There is not a book in the Bible which justifies the 
inference that God loves his children who die in wick- 
edness, or that his hell is for the welfare of its mel- 
ancholy inmates, only for the vengeance of their 
Creator. 

Out of this dark mass of evil in himself he created 
the devil — absolutely evil — and hell ; both to last 
for ever, each a finality. The devil is also a child 
of God, but not acknowledged — turned off, an out- 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 55 



lying member of the Divine family, the Ishmael of the 
universe, his hand against God, God's against him. 
But after this mass of evil is subtracted and embodied 
in the devil, it is plain that evil still preponderates in 
the theological conception of God: for he does not 
bring the human race to a close, but still goes on 
creating new children of wrath, bowed down with the 
" sin " of " Adam's fall," before their birth doomed 
to eternal wretchedness. He might pardon, but he 
will not; stop creation, but he keeps the world going 
on, spawning whole shoals of people wherewith to 
fatten in hell! He might at least annihilate the 
damned; but even that were too merciful for his vin- 
dictive wrath; they must writhe in their agony for 
ever and ever! 

Yet, though evil so far preponderates in the ecclesi- 
astical idea of God, as shown in his conduct, some 
humane mercy is also ascribed to him, with corre- 
sponding acts. He wishes to save a few brands from 
the burning of the world, to give some other men 
glimpses of a prospect of escape from ruin. So he 
prepares a scheme of " redemption " for a few — 
exceptions to the ruin of the rest. 

IV. Op the false idea of inspiration. — God 
communicated certain doctrines to various men, doc- 
trines of revelation. They were not found out by the 
normal action of the various human faculties — intel- 
lectual, moral, affectional, and religious — for then 
they would be of human origin, and, like other opin- 
ions, amenable to mankind ; but they were miraculously 
given by God himself to men in an abnormal passivity 
of their various human faculties ; and are, accordingly, 
of divine origin, not at all amenable to mankind. 



56 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



They are foreign plants miraculously brought from 
heaven and set out in our niggardly human soil. In- 
spiration takes place in this manner: the Spirit of 
God takes transient or continuous possession of a 
special person and acts through him; so the action is 
God's, and not man's — God the artist, man the tool. 
The doctrines thus miraculously communicated are 
infallible and authoritative, the standard measure of 
religion and morality. They are also a finality; when 
the revelation is once ended, nothing is ever to be added 
thereto, nought taken away. Revelation to one man 
is binding on all, thus words uttered by a half -civilized 
Hebrew, many centuries ago, in a state of ecstasy, 
or dream, or fit of wrath, must now be taken for the 
infallible oracles of God, by a man born with the high- 
est genius and furnished with the most ample culture 
which the human race can bestow. He must accept 
every doctrine of revelation, though in direct variance 
with the noblest instincts of human nature and the 
demonstrations of human science. These doctrines of 
revelation, thus actively communicated by God and 
passively received by some man, are to be accounted as 
the primitive source of theological ideas, the fountain 
of all our knowledge of God and what pertains to 
religion; human reflection and imagination may only 
develop, but must not transcend, what lies latent in 
these seeds of knowledge! 

V. Of the false idea of salvation. — In conse- 
quence of the misstep and " fall " of Adam, God is 
permanently angry with the human race and inclined 
to damn all men to eternal torment. But his wrath 
has been somewhat mitigated, appeased and diverted 
from certain persons in this manner; the Divine Being 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 57 



is composed of three undivided personalities, who are 
equal in all respects. The second person, called the 
Son, though eternal and self-subsistent, as much as 
the first person, the Father — by his own will and con- 
sent becomes a man, " incarnated " in Jesus of Naz- 
areth, " the only begotten Son of God," " born of a 
virgin," with no other human parent. He takes on 
himself all the wrath which God the Father felt for 
mankind, is crucified, and thus one undivided third 
part of the unchangeable and eternal God dies, yet 
the sum total of Godhead is not diminished by this 
temporary subtraction, but comes to life again and 
rises from the dead. The " sufferings " of the Son 
are an " infinite expiation " and " satisfaction " to 
God for the sins of men, who may thus escape from 
hell by his " vicarious atonement." His " merits " 
are transferred to their account, and they may advance 
to heaven through his " imputed righteousness," the 
" divine condition " of salvation. But men receive 
this divine salvation — deliverance from hell by vica- 
rious atonement, and admission to heaven by imputed 
righteousness — on certain terms, the " human condi- 
tion " of salvation. And the terms are such that, of 
all who have hitherto lived, the " saved " are a most 
pitiful fraction compared to the "lost!" Hell is 
roomy and crowded, while heaven is narrow, but with 
many mansions all unoccupied! The great mass of 
men, before their birth, are doomed to eternal torment, 
whence no act of theirs can set them free. The whole 
" scheme of redemption," with the doctrines of revela- 
tion, the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of 
one undivided third part of the Godhead, salvation by 
Christ, has no other result but to save a handful, 
gleaned miraculously from the earthly field, while the 



58 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



great bulk of the human harvest, grown in so many 
centuries and reaped down by death, is shooked up by 
the devil for the threshing-floor of hell, where he and 
his angels shall flail at them for ever and ever, and 
winnow them with a fiery tempest of wrath, which lasts 
throughout all eternity. 

These five false ideas are common to the three great 
parties into which the Christian sect is divided — to 
the Greek church, the Latin church, and the German 
church. They all share the idea of an imperfect God ; 
of a depraved and almost worthless human nature; 
of a relation of perpetual antagonism between God the 
Creator and man his work; of a miraculous inspira- 
tion, limited to a few persons ; of a vicarious salvation, 
which helps only a few, while it leaves the great ma j or- 
ity of mankind to perish for ever. These five false 
ideas are the chief thing in these ecclesiastical institu- 
tions, which take thence their peculiar form and special 
activity. 

Omit, for the present, the specialties of the Greek 
church, which does not now influence the destinies of 
America, and consider, for a moment, the peculiar doc- 
trine of the Latin and German churches, the other 
two-thirds of Christendom. To the above five points 
common to all Christendom, the Latin or Roman Cath- 
olic church adds these two ideas. 

I. The Roman church — that is, practically, the 
clergy thereof — are the sole depositary of the miracu- 
lous revelation, and are still miraculously and infalli- 
bly inspired. They alone have, in its fulness, the 
traditional part of the ecclesiastical institution, as well 
oral as written; they alone can produce the original 
part, which is only a development of the germ in the 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 59 



old. Thus they, and they alone, can interpret the 
divine ideas of revelation and administer the divine 
institutions thence arising. They continue the state 
of inspiration, miraculously preserving the old, mirac- 
ulously developing the new. 

The Roman church — that is, practically, its clergy 
— is the exclusive steward of this " salvation by 
Christ," appointed as the agent of God with a special 
power of attorney from him to do all matters and 
things which he might do were he actually resident 
on the earth, whence he has now withdrawn and se- 
ceded. The Roman church is to dictate the terms on 
which this salvation shall be served out to nations and 
individual persons ; to bind or loose in doctrine, ad- 
vancing men to heaven, or relegating them to hell. 
She is the actual vicegerent and representative of God 
on earth, substantially is God. 

In virtue of these two ideas, the Roman church 
determines the doctrines to be believed and the deeds 
to be done as a condition of salvation. She is a 
finality, is the norm of faith and works. Conformity 
therewith is the exclusive condition of present favor 
and final acceptance with God. There must be no 
ultimate free spiritual individuality in religious mat- 
ters, no private judgment in theology, as she is God's 
vicar to determine theological thought and religious 
action, for each individual taking the place of mind 
and conscience, heart and soul; and as the human 
faculties are " totally depraved," and she " infallibly 
inspired," it is a great gain for the human race to 
have their spiritual work done for them by so compe- 
tent a hand. 

The Roman church claims to be a divine institution, 
not at all human in origin, function, or responsibility, 



60 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



but wholly of God ; and even to him amenable only as 
a part of himself, an expansion of the Godhead. No 
amount of contradiction in the Catholic doctrines, or of 
wickedness in the infallible heads of the church, dimin- 
ishes the divinity of the institution. She is one and 
indivisible, with absolute unity of doctrinal substance 
and practical form ; no sects can be allowed, no his- 
torical progress in doctrine, for the ultimatum was 
attained at the very beginning. Accordingly the 
function of the Catholic priest is to administer the 
miraculous revelation, to dictate with authority the 
doctrines to be believed, the work to be done, and to 
communicate the vicarious salvation. 

II. The German or Protestant church, entertaining 
these five false ideas common to Christendom, rejects 
the two subsidiary which are proper only to the Roman 
church, and develops this, which is her own peculiar 
and distinctive opinion: The Scriptures of the Old 
and New Testament are the sole depository of the 
miraculous revelation; they determine the doctrines to 
be believed, the works to be done, the conditions of 
salvation. They are the finality, the norm of faith 
and works. Conformity with them is the indispen- 
sable condition of present favor and final acceptance 
with God. Men must take the Bible as master; it is 
divine in origin, function, and responsibility; nay, it 
is only an expansion of God. To the Catholic the 
Latin church is God, deity embodied in the priesthood ; 
to the Protestant the Bible is God, deity bound up in 
a collection of books. The Bible contains all that 
man needs in theological matters, now and hereafter, 
all he can ever get, for it is not only God's word, but 
his last word, his last will and testament, for though 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 61 



living elsewhere he is now seceded and deceased from 
all direct communication with man. There is no in- 
spiration now; it is all ended, the stream run dry. 
The Bible is signed, sealed, and delivered as and for 
the last will and testament of Almighty God. 

But as there is no miraculous expounder of the 
miraculous revelation, every man may and must inter- 
pret the Bible for himself. This is the weak part of 
this ecclesiastical institution considered as a finality : 
each man has the right of private judgment, to deter- 
mine the canon, what is Scripture ; and the interpreta- 
tion, what Scripture means. There may be individ- 
uality of opinion in religion as elsewhere. Within 
the lids of the Bible there is room, for speculation. 
Nay, logically, the authority of the Bible itself is to 
be proved to the satisfaction of the individual before 
he accepts it as his master. Hence there can be no 
unity of doctrine or of form with the Protestants; 
and at the beginning the Teutonic individualism clove 
the new church into many parties, each having the 
general opinions of Protestantism and the special 
notions of Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and so 
forth. 

The function of the Protestant minister is to admin- 
ister the Bible, which contains the miraculous balm 
of salvation for the sin of depraved human nature ; he 
must set forth the most important parts of the Bible, 
the doctrines, which are the essential and medicative 
substance of this balm. Hence come the efforts to dis- 
tribute the Bible — the word of God — and doctrinal 
tracts, which contain the extract of Bible, the quintes- 
sence of the word of God. For as the strength of 
Samson lay not in his bones, and muscles, and sinews, 
but only in his hair, so the efficient and salvatory power 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



of the Bible lies not in those beautiful parts which 
teach natural piety and natural morality, but only in 
its theological doctrines, especially in those five false 
ideas above set forth, which theological chemistry dis- 
tils therefrom. 

In both the Catholic and the Protestant churches 
all the fundamental theological doctrines are taught 
on external authority; the last appeal for the accept- 
ance of doctrines is not to the consciousness of the 
individual believer pronouncing them just and true, 
but to the miraculous revelation declaring them divine 
commands ; not to the Spirit of God now in me, but 
what is alleged to have been the Spirit of God in some 
man long since dead and gone. Science rests on facts 
of consciousness and facts of observation, it is there- 
fore " profane; " theology on the " said-so " of some- 
body, often of an anonymous writer in a rude and 
uncertain age, and is " Divine." One has the evidence 
of human nature in us, and the world of matter out 
of us, and so roots into consciousness and observation ; 
the other comes from the dictation of a minister or 
a priest, who dogmatizes at will about man, God, 
and the most important of all human concerns, and 
does not root into our spontaneous or reflected con- 
sciousness, and like doctrines of philosophy grow 
thence, but is only grasped by the will and thereby is 
retained. 

In the Catholic church I ask, " What is truth ; what 
is religion ? " I am sent to the opinion of the Cath- 
olic church, which I must believe, not because it is true 
— for that would imply that I can myself determine 
what is true — but because the infallible church says 
it must be believed. So, as evidence of a theological 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 63 



doctrine — the existence of God, the immortality of 
the soul — I have the word of a Roman priest ! 

In the Protestant church I ask the same question, 
and am sent to the opinion of somebody in the New 
Testament or the Old. I am told to believe the doc- 
trine, not because it is true, conformable to my own 
nature, but because it is written in the infallible Scrip- 
tures. And as evidence for a theological doctrine — 
the nature of God, or man, or daily duty — I have the 
word of somebody in the Bible! 

Thus in both divisions of the Western church the 
free spirit of humanity is shut out, and we are referred 
to an outward standard, not one within mankind. I 
ask the Catholics, " How do you know your church is 
infallible ? " and the Protestant, " What is the proof 
of the divinity and infallibleness of your Bible? " but 
neither has any valid argument to offer; each assumes 
the chief point on which all else depends, and puts a 
master on the neck of mankind. The inquirer is not 
to ask, " What is true, conformable to the instincts 
and reflections of human nature ? " only, " What is 
ecclesiastical and of the church? or, What is Scrip- 
tural and of the Bible?" Thus the outside caprice 
of some man, often of some unknown man, is made 
to take precedence of the facts of the universe. God 
is postponed and a priest preferred. 

What is yet worse, in both the Latin and the Ger- 
man church, much more stress is laid on the Christian 
theology than on the Christian religion. Natural 
piety, natural morality — the religion of human nature 
— is thought good for nothing ; stigmatized as 
" deism," " infidelity," which " saves nobody," " good 
to live with, not to die by." Religion is accessory, 
theology principal. 



64 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



In the Christian theology there are doctrines, good 
and bad, much older than Jesus, things from him and 
his time, many from a later date. The Christian 
church was the residuary legatee of the institutions it 
slew, or which perished without such foreign aid. It 
retained many of the best things of Hebrew and 
heathen antiquity ; one thing it left out of its treasury, 
free individuality of spirit, freedom in philosophy, 
freedom in religion. Yet it was this which made the 
moralists, poets, and philosophers of the heathen insti- 
tutions, the prophets and psalmists of the Hebrew in- 
stitutions; yes, it made Jesus and his apostles. The 
church kept the child's swaddling bands, the fictitious 
likeness of father and mother, the gossip of nurses, 
and the little cradle, but it shook out the live baby; it 
kept the wonderful draught of fishes which toilsome 
mankind had caught, called it " miraculous," and then 
forbid all persons to cast net or angle in the great 
deep of humanity, whence it had been taken. Here- 
after that ocean must be shunned as a dead sea; and 
fishes therein must be held blasphemous, and burned 
with the fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 

There is one great scheme of theology common to 
the Christian sects; it was gradually formed in the 
dark and middle ages, and contains both good and 
evil. It was a growth out of human nature, perhaps 
as unavoidable, under the circumstances, as the par- 
ticular schemes of agriculture, or politics of that time, 
coming as the feudal system, as alchemy, and astrol- 
ogy, and other experiments of man. Of course the 
ecclesiastical institutions are no more supernatural 
than the pattern of merchant-ships, or the constitution 
of the republic of San Marino. Mistakes in the form 
of religion — feelings, opinions, actions — are no 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 65 



more surprising than mistakes in the form of the fam- 
ily or the community; false ideas in theology not 
more astonishing than in philosophy or business, which 
are all attempts at progress, and advance by experi- 
ment. But these ecclesiastical institutions are forced 
on man as " divine," of " miraculous origin." The 
Catholic priest says, " The church is all glorious, not 
a spot or blemish on her," and " out of the church is 
no salvation." The Protestant minister says, " The 
Scriptures are all divine, no human wrinkle in the di- 
vine leaves, where inspiration yet flutters, and wherein 
revelation is written; out of the Bible there is no 
salvation ! " It is easy to be mistaken ; it is also not 
difficult to deceive others, at least to make the at- 
tempt. Is this innocent error, or pernicious decep- 
tion? The clergy are the most learned body in 
Christendom ; are they also the most stupid ? Men 
will answer this question as they must. The church 
and the state are ruled by men tempted alike, perhaps 
equally honest. There is wicked legislation, wicked 
doctrinization ; good also in both kinds. 

These ecclesiastical institutions of Christendom 
contain much good; but their worst things rest on 
the same " divine revelation," and claim the same " su- 
pernatural authority." The same " revelation " gives 
us God, and the dreadful malignity of God; a little 
spot of heaven it gives us and then crowds humanity 
down into its bottomless hell, roaring with that infer- 
nal sea's immeasurable taunt at our endless agony. 
The same fountain gives us a little brook of sweet 
fair water, enough for a household, and then drowns 
the world in a deluge of hell-fire. 

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link; if the 

rest be of iron, and one joint only be of straw, when 
1—5 



66 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



the weight is put on the chain snaps in its weakest 
part. With these notorious faults in it, the " mi- 
raculous communication from God," its " infallible 
revelation," the " authoritative rule," is good for noth- 
ing ; its " hell " destroys its " heaven," and the malig- 
nant and foolish character it ascribes to God makes 
its testimony as to the existence of God utterly worth- 
less. The chain which let down God to our sight 
breaks off at the link of devil. Allow me to take the 
chain to pieces, and use the good sound metal, either 
in its present form when thus serviceable, or as old 
iron to be heated afresh and wrought into new shapes 
for use or beauty, it is of great worth. The links of 
sand and straw may go for what they are worth, the 
magazine of iron serves our purpose. But if we must 
use it as a chain, it is not only good for nothing, 
holding no weight, but still worse than nothing, fail- 
ing when we rely on it most, and, beside that, falling 
upon our heads. 

But what can stand against the spirit of man- 
kind? Chain the wind! Let me see you! It blow- 
eth where it listeth. In the sixteenth century the 
free-thinkers of Europe, who were only the head of a 
column of doubt which reached across the dark ages, 
attacked the infallibility of the Romish church. 
Down went the outer wall, and through its wide breach 
all North Germany, Scandinavia, Anglo-Saxondom, 
with half Holland and Switzerland, marched forth to 
new fields. In vain did atheistic Rome let off her 
mock lightnings and stage thunders at Luther and 
Calvin; the Latin herd of bulls went down before the 
terrible charge of Teutonic horse, led by such cham- 
pions as Gustavus and Cromwell. The whole camp 
of Christian theology was in confusion. 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 67 



Other free-thinkers followed; the Socinians, with 
their coadjutors, attacked the Trinity. " God is 
one," said they, 44 not triple ; Jesus is not Jehovah ; 
the Son not the Father. God cannot be born, be a 
baby, a boy, a man, and then die. It is not in the 
Bible ; if it were, we would believe it ; we renounce the 
Trinity." So there rose up the Unitarians; not very 
numerous, but powerful through their arguments and 
character. In turn the Trinitarians screamed their 
maledictions. 44 You are no followers of Jesus, not 
Christians ; you have denied the Lord that bought you. 
God not die ! Did not God the Father 4 make bare 
his red right arm, and on Calvary stab through and 
kill his only begotten Son ? ' Without God mani- 
fested in Christ, we should not know any God at all. 
You are Atheists ! " But a new breach was made in 
the mediaeval wall of Christendom, and other men 
marched forth. The whole citadel of theology w T as 
again in peril. 

Then kind-hearted men, free-thinking further yet, 
said, " There can be no such thing as eternal dam- 
nation ; God is not a devil, he is a Father ; there is no 
future torment at all, or if any, it is correction in love, 
not revenge in hate. Listen to all these blessed beati- 
tudes of Old Testament and New ; eternal hell is not in 
the Bible: if it were we should believe it." A great 
outcry was made against these lovers of mankind. 
44 What! give up hell; our own eternal hell?" ex- 
claimed the damnationists. 44 You have taken away 
our Lord, and we know not where you have laid him ; 
there can be no religion if eternal torment do not 
scare depraved man out of his senses." Still this de- 
nial went on and multiplied, and a third great breach 
was made in the battled wall, while all the ecclesiasti- 



68 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



cal institutions shook as hell was wrenched away from 
underneath that corner of the church. 

These breaches cannot be filled up ; the German 
Protestant goes not back to the " Infallible Roman 
church;" the Unitarian has consulted his "carnal 
reason," and no longer believes that the eternal God 
once lay, newly born, a baby in the arms of his vir- 
gin mother, and was fed from her bosom ; the Uni- 
versalist returns no more to the " doctrine of devils," 
but refuses to worship a God who would damn even 
a New England stealer of men. Who can annul a 
fact? The charmed wall of Christian theology is clo- 
ven through in three places. Shall mankind build 
up the breach? It were as easy to reverse the motion 
of the great rivers of the continent, and make the At- 
lantic ascend the St. Lawrence, climb up the steep 
of Niagara, and empty its vast volume into the Lake 
of the Woods. 

But in the great body of the Christian church this 
old theology still prevails. The Catholics outnum- 
ber the Protestants as three to two, all the Celto-Ro- 
manic nations yet cleave to the Latin church, and are 
shut up in the clenched fist of the Pope. With the 
greater part of the Protestants hell and the Trinity 
are still treasured in their " creed." Even the Uni- 
tarians and Universalists cleave to " salvation by 
Christ," which means nothing in theology unless 
Christ be a God-man to save, and there be also " a 
dreadful fiery hell " of eternal duration, and wrath 
of God kept for ever, which we are to be saved from: 
they cleave to external authority, and will not credit 
the immortality of the soul, or the obligations of duty, 
unless they find it written in the Bible and confirmed 
by " miracles." So in theology they know no ulti- 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 69 



mate God but of paper, which they worship instead of 
the infinite cause of providence of the universe, who 
confronts us ever, go we where we may. Accordingly 
they also accept the old " revelation " as the Ultima 
Thule of religion, spurn the thought of new inspira- 
tion good as the old, and count it blasphemy to sup- 
pose there ever can be another man as wise and reli- 
gious as Jesus of Nazareth! So the littlest of sects 
must have their defenders of the faith to hoot out 
" Infidel," " Deist, 5 ' and put a fence high as the Ro- 
man wall about the little, transient, thin-soiled sum- 
mer garden of cooling fruits. In each sect of Prot- 
estantism it is still a heresy to believe theologic truth 
because it is true, or to hope for progress beyond the 
ecclesiastical institutions of Christendom. 

But a movement more important than that of Lu- 
ther has long been going forward. Men deny all 
these five false ideas, and undermine the foundation 
of the Christian theology, the miraculous revelation 
itself. Here come the " Deists " of the seventeenth 
and other centuries, and the powerful mockers from 
various ages, who, though sitting in the seat of the 
scornful, have yet done mankind great service with 
the terrible arrows of their wit. Here also come the 
philosophers of many a wiser school, material and 
transcendental. 

In the seventeenth century, in the age of Bacon, 
Milton, Newton, Locke, out of the midst of the uned- 
ucated peasantry of England, there rose up a man 
gifted with great genius for religion, its emotions and 
its ideas, and taught truths whose size and beauty 
amazed the thoughtful world. At one step George 
Fox went centuries in advance of Christendom. He 



70 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



felt that the ecclesiastical institutions of his time were 
not final ; that " Christianity " itself is not God's last 
word and dying confession; that the spirit of God in 
us must not be driven out to let in the word of some 
other man, for God in the soul is greater than all Bi- 
bles out of it. He did not comprehend his own great 
sentiments ; yet here and there his emotion broke forth 
into noble doctrines. But the age was too early ; he 
and his friends turned back to the ecclesiastical insti- 
tutions of the time, and also worshipped the stocks 
and stones of an alleged revelation, grieving away 
the free spirit of God which comes like new morning 
to all risen souls ; yea, to all the slumbering and such 
as will not wake. " Oppression maketh wise men 
mad," and the attractions of the Christian theology 
may easily draw even a great man from the self-sub- 
sistency of pure human religion. It is 

" The most difficult of tasks to keep 
Heights which the soul is competent to gain." 

The succeeding Quakers were still more easily satis- 
fied with the poor ideas which the Christian theology 
offered of God, of man, of their relation, of miracu- 
lous and finished inspiration, and salvation by an- 
other's blood; they contented themselves with making 
broad their phylacteries, with enlarging the borders 
of their garments, and being called of men " thee " 
and " thou." But while listening for the echo of 
footsteps taken thousands of years gone by, they 
heeded not the beauteous Presence then and there 
passing before them, and not far from each. No 
wonder their prophetic blossom fell idle, and they 
brought no fruit to perfection. But the rise of such 
men as John Woolman, Job Scott, Elias Hicks, and a 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 71 



few others, as well men as women, showed that the 
ashes which a Christian theology raked over Fox and 
Nayler, and Barclay and Penn, could not smother the 
seeds of fire which God planted in human nature, and 
with the fresh breath of inspiration quickens to new 
and fair religious life. How vain to worship an idol ! 

"Thou, Thou alone art everlasting, and the blessed spirits 
Which thou includest as the sea her waves." 

All along, in all the ages of populous mankind, there 
have risen up sons of the spirit who scorned the lit- 
tle theologies of Hebrew, or heathen, or Christian 
churches, left such farthing candles under the priest's 
bushel or the couch of a nun, and in the light of God's 
morning went forth amid the grass and the flowers of 
nature, catching the song of earliest birds, and, like 
the newly risen sun, serving and praising God by 
their free, joyous life of daily duty. When shall 
we close the lists and seek truth no more? When hu- 
manity gives up the ghost. The loving of the maiden 
is beautiful and joyous as the wedlock of the bride. 
Noble German Luther 1 said, " If God would stand 
before me, truth in his right hand, search for truth 
in the left, and say, 4 Choose, Martin, which thou 
wilt,' I would bow me down at his left hand and say, 
£ Oh ! Father, give me search after truth ; though I 
wander and fall into many an error, I will journey 
ever forward and upward unto thee ! ' " 

Now all the sects in America share these false ideas, 
and rest them on a basis which they pretend is divine. 
They know only an imperfect God, a depraved man- 
kind, and an antagonistic relation between the two; 
no revelation but one miraculous, unnatural, and long 



72 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



since ended; no safety but the vicarious " salvation by 
Christ ! " 

The function of the " Christian minister " is not 
to educate the mind and conscience and heart and 
soul of the people : not to learn and teach absolute 
truth, justice, loveliness, and self-subsistent holiness, 
but to administer the alleged revelation — of the Bi- 
ble or the church — and bend and twist " our fallen 
human nature " into the shape demanded by the 
ecclesiastical institutions. He must bow him down 
before the old inspiration, not also for himself win 
and receive the new. The thirty thousand Christian 
ministers of the United States do not aim to produce 
natural religion, natural moralitv in men. the largest 
development of manhood and womanhood : but to make 
them partakers of the vicarious salvation, to rid them 
of human nature, the " natural heart," and appease 
the wrath of God. Prayer is to humanize the deity, 
not to elevate and develop man. Thus religion, the 
most powerful of all emotions in man, is turned away 
from its natural function and disfigures our life: It 
smutches the face with cowardice and unwomanly 
terror, and makes us go stooping and feeble, with eyes 
which dare not look up. and hearts that quiver and 
quail at the name of eternity, or its God ! Hence 
the ministers of Christianity are no more powerful for 
good works. Some of them are able men, educated 
at great cost, no class of men so bookish and aca- 
demic; a few are devoted, self-denying men; the ma- 
jority chose their calling with an unselfish love for 
it : some of them would lay down their lives for man- 
kind. But while they consider it is their function 
not to provide for men's bodies by teaching us how to 
live a natural life of industry, temperance and thrift, 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 73 



full of strength, truth, and comeliness; not to edu- 
cate men's minds, developing the intellectual power 
to know truth and beauty, and handsomely report and 
apply the same; not to unfold the conscience so that 
we shall both know and keep the natural law which 
God enacts in the constitution of man; not to bring 
out the affections till we love each other in all the 
forms of human endearment — filial, connubial, paren- 
tal, affiliated, friendly, and philanthropic; not to cul- 
tivate the soul so that we shall know the real God by 
heart — not merely trembling beneath a fabled deity 
imported from some foreign consciousness and piled 
upon us — and taste, and see, and feel his infinite 
perfection, till we also partake of his excellence and 
become one with him, inspired by his truth, justice, 
and love, communing with him in all noble life, and 
having no fear, but serving with continual growth of 
our being to absolute love and absolute truth ; — while 
they do none of these things, but as their chief and 
instantial function seek to administer what at best 
were only a foreign, old, and finished inspiration, if it 
could be even that ; and communicate a salvation alleged 
to be wrought out by one who died two thousand years 
ago; while for ultimate authority they appeal, not to 
the spirit of God within me now, in my own mind and 
conscience, heart and soul, not even to that spirit out- 
side of me in the green and transient beauty of this 
earthly spring or the perennial loveliness of the heav j 
ens whose spring is eternal, but to an old revelation, 
impossible to verify, made, it is said, to men long 
since dead, of whom I know little, and that not wholly 
to their credit as teachers of truth, full of errors ob- 
vious not less than manifold; while they appeal to 
low motives in me, to mean and selfish fear, now brib- 



74 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



ing with heaven, now scaring with hell, bewildering 
history with capricious fable, and philosophy with 
shameful theologic myths, preaching up an imperfect 
God who hates and will damn all his creatures save 
a scanty few, they seldom the noblest, and thunder 
forth all this mad volley against a heart which they 
declare totally depraved, incapable of any good 
thing, fertile only of evil, how can they succeed in 
elevating mankind to the dignity of human nature? 
True, there are noble men in all the churches, noble 
ministers in every sect, but they work for a vain pur- 
pose, counting it their business to " pacify God," who 
yet needs no appeasing; they would save men from 
the fabulous " wrath to come," not from the real evils 
of want, ignorance, vice, oppression, and abnormal 
conduct in all its thousand forms ; they tell us to get 
rid of human nature, not to avoid the errors of hu- 
man experiment, not to develop this noblest creation 
of God to its commensurate destination. They tell 
us that the manliest of all the Greek and Roman he- 
roes, patriots, philosophers, and bards, the women 
whose beautiful souls bloomed into natural piety, the 
millions of common people faithful to all which God 
gave them, must " perish everlasting ; " and even 
the magnanimous saints of the Hebrew or the Chris- 
tian age were not such by their nature born in them, 
or their voluntary use of it, but a " miracle of grace " 
wrought in their passive substance by the Almighty 
Artist; that character saves no man; only Christ can 
"redeem!" It is not large, self-reliant manhood 
which ministers ask to make us " Christians," but the 
acceptance of another's action in place of my own. 
You read of " conversions," thickly following in these 
days: generally it does not mean the education of the 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 75 



man, but how often only that he has learnt a new 
trick of whining, or of believing something which 
he cannot even credit when in full possession of him- 
self! Jesus of Nazareth is one of the last men who 
could be " converted " to this " Christianity " of our 
times! What a heretic that great magnificent soul 
would be to our ecclesiastical institutions ! A mission- 
ary of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in 
Foreign Parts writes from the Crimea: "The soldier 
is very childlike in some things; he has been so long 
accustomed to obey that he has not been allowed to 
form notions or have opinions, and thus he is in a fit 
state to receive the good news, the glad tidings of 
salvation; he receives it in simplicity." So in his 
highest condition the Christian is only a suckling 
on the miraculous bosom of the church! Must then 
the sons of the church be only continual babies? 

No doubt the ecclesiastical institutions of Christen- 
dom are the greatest obstacle now in the way of man's 
progress, retarding and perverting the intellectual, 
moral, affectional, and religious development of the 
human race. Still, they are not able to destroy the 
instinct for progress, and in America hold back the 
tide of improvement. While the Christian sects have 
been building up this dark theology of unreason, 
there has been a great growth of philosophy and 
religion. See what a forest of science and literature 
has sprung up outside of the churches, and in spite 
of the mildew of their breath. 

All over Christendom thoughtful men have broken 
with the ecclesiastical traditions. They find there is 
no such imperfect and dreadful God! no such totally 
depraved man as the church pretends ; no such an- 



76 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



tagonism between the divine and human nature ; no 
such miraculous revelation, or vicarious salvation; 
that there is no infallible church, nor infallible Bible ; 
no Trinity, no incarnation, no eternal hell, no mir- 
acle; that the history of man's religious development 
is no more mysterious than the history of his agricul- 
ture or astronomy: nay, that all the great steps are 
forward and upward, this ghastly theology itself one 
of the manifold experiments of humanity, in our tri- 
umphant march — a stumble, but forward. 

Some of these are philosophers — men of science, 
of metaphysics — who have profoundly studied the 
world of matter and of man, and become familiar 
with human history. Some are philanthropists; they 
labor for the oppressed and perishing; take the part 
of the laity against the priesthood; of the people 
against the tyrant ; of woman against man, who holds 
her down by force; of the slave against Ins master; 
of him that suffers wrong against whoso does the 
wrong. They seek to spread knowledge, industry, 
temperance, riches, health, beauty, and long life, and 
purity, and every human virtue amongst all men. 
They would promote peace between nations, and found 
society on cooperative industry, not on mutual selfish 
antagonism. 

All these men have broken with the ecclesiasti- 
cal institutions, Catholic and Protestant. They ask 
not its heaven, nor tremble at its hell. There is a 
great body of thinking men in America and Eng- 
land, who have outgrown the mediaeval theology ; they 
are not " in a fit state to receive the good news, the 
glad tidings of salvation," for they have been accus- 
tomed " to form notions and have opinions " of their 
own. Over these the church has lost its ancient 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 77 



power. Some of them wander away into speculative 
atheism, disgusted with the very name of religion. 
Do you marvel at it? Remember what has been of- 
fered them in that name ! Many stop this side of 
that extreme, but yet have no conscious religion. 
Full of pious feeling, rich in moral conduct, and in 
hope for mankind, they are religious without belief 
in God, and hopeful with no expectation of a future 
heaven. 

I look with great pain on the men whom the Chris- 
tion theology has driven away from religion; they are 
the confessors and martyrs of the church of the fu- 
ture. Saints of denial, their fidelity drove them forth 
from institutions which could not satisfy the thought- 
ful man. They found no rest, " in wandering mazes 
lost." They went on the forlorn hope of mankind, 
to storm the castle of despair ; they perish in the ditch, 
crushed by the wall they overthrow. In a better age 
they would go first and foremost in building up the 
great temple of piety. Now they only prepare for 
its foundation, and never see its blessed walls; Sime- 
ons who die without the consolation ! 

But how much more do I mourn over the less manly 
fate of such as accept these institutions, and are be- 
numbed by the narcotics of the church, till all their 
manhood is paralyzed, and they lie there, coffined in 
their pews, which rest on crumbling graves, stifled 
with the miasma thereof, swathed about with the 
mummy-cloths of a theology that is Egyptian in its 
darkness if not in age, and burthened with a torpor, 
profound, heavy, and similar to death, were it not 
visited with fear, that dreadful nightmare which 
haunts the church! It is better that doubt deprive 
us of sleep, rather than belief take all our life away. 



78 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



For what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole 
world of theology, and lose the integrity of his own 
consciousness ; or what shall a man get in exchange 
for his soul? The name " Christian; " the title " or- 
thodox!" 

I know ministers chide at this as " a material age." 
Never was one so spiritual before. There was never 
so much action of the highest faculties in man; never 
so much wise thought, such science, such metaphysics, 
such history, such beautiful creations of intellectual 
magnificence. There was never so much morality; 
such keeping of the natural laws of God; never so 
much benevolence amongst men, nor so much piety ; 
reverence for truth, justice, love, and holiness; never 
so much love for the infinite God. But this spiritual 
activity does not put its new wine in the old leath- 
ern bottles of the church. So the church thinks 
it fit only for the devil's sacrament ! It builds no 
pyramids, nor parthenons, nor cathedrals of St. Pe- 
ter, " indulging " a hemisphere on purchased wicked- 
ness that it may pile up sandstone and marble in the 
name of God. It does not engage in a crusade 
against brother men in the name of him whose early 
word was, " Love your neighbor as yourself," and his 
latest, " Father, forgive them, for they know not 
what they do ! " No colonies are founded in the name 
of religion, because the nations which swarm forth 
into new hives have conquered the oppressive church 
and now can enjoy their religion at home. The 
Puritan builds him his meeting-house in old Eng- 
land ; the Quaker need not " bear his testimony " by 
leaving the grave of his mother; the Waldenses may 
fill all the valleys of the Alps, with none to molest 
or make them afraid. We exaggerate the religious- 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 79 



ness of past times and underrate our own. The mil- 
lions who went to the Holy Land in the dark ages, 
with the red cross on their shoulders, to fight the 
Saracen, had as little of true religion as the filibus- 
ters 2 who would pillage Cuba and Mexico ; or the 
mob who crowded to the funeral of Bill Poole 3 in 
New York. Once ignorant men honestly affirmed the 
popular theology; now man enlightened denies it and 
spurns it away. 

Reverence for God sends men to study nature, 
his undoubted Scriptures ; the world of matter his Old 
Testament, the world of man his New. There was 
never such a profound and wide-spread love of truth, 
and seach after it. Look at Germany and France, 
which lead in the world's science, literature, and art; 
look at England and America, following with our 
slower Saxon brain, our heavier and more material 
feet! See how in those perennial diagrams of fire 
men study the thought of God demonstrated in the 
geometric science of the sky, or in the deeper heaven 
of man's nature watch the course of those human 
stars for ever wheeling round the central orb, which 
is unseen though felt through all our history! 

The religious spirit of this age shows itself in the 
attempt to found better political institutions, which 
shall insure unity of action to millions, and yet de- 
stroy the personal freedom of no man. Look back 
a few hundred years, — what were all the six cru- 
sades to the American and French Revolutions — to 
the year of revolutions 4 so recently passed by? 
What was the pretended discovery of the true cross, 
of the tomb of Jesus, of the lance which pierced his 
side, compared with the attempts to abolish slavery, 
war, pauperism, ignorance, drunkenness! One was 



80 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



the search for a piece of wood, or iron, or stone; the 
other an attempt to elevate man to the image of 
God. It was an act of piety to build the cathedrals 
of Europe. What is it to build up such communities 
of men as the new free states of America, — Iowa, 
Wisconsin, Minnesota? Are the mechanical inventions 
of this age to pass for nothing! Now the gospel of 
mind is preached to matter, material elements have 
Heard the word with j oy ; and in this new pentecost, 
earth, air, fire, water, lightning, have received the 
Holy Ghost, and are baptized with thought, obedient 
to the heavenly vision ; they become servants of the 
church of humanity, and are ministers to promote the 
true salvation of mankind — clothing the naked, giv- 
ing bread to the poor, and education to the thought- 
ful and the heedless. 

See what reform of laws goes on continual; what 
pains are taken to defend the most exposed classes of 
mankind. Down must fall the gallows, type of a 
malignant God; the Sun of Righteousness must shine 
into the dungeon; jails must no more be savage tor- 
ture-chambers, but civil hospitals to heal the sickly 
man; crime must become amenable to correction which 
would bless, not subject only to vengeance which 
would but burn and kill; drunkenness must end, and 
American democracy forges her sharpest, heaviest 
axe, grinds it to rough and dreadful edge, then smites 
it down upon that beast with seven ghastly heads, 
and seventy times as many ample-tined horns all red 
with murder; drunkenness must die. Pauperism must 
lay off its rags, no longer sitting in the dirt of Dives' 
gate with no attendance save the dogs', unasked; but 
the science of the age shall heal the beggar of his 
poverty, which is the destruction of the poor. The 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 81 



lame must walk, the public finding crutch; the blind 
must see with foreign eyes, germane not alien; the 
deaf must hear with other sense which human science 
gives ; and in his fingers the dumb man finds a 
tongue, and yet no miracle. In his right mind the 
lunatic sits clothed. The harlot, seduced by passion 
once, or scourged by want, must now be wooed back 
to comely womanhood once more; the nun, no longer 
in idle dreams worshipping the " Virgin Mother of 
God," reclaims these hard-entreated sisters of men, 
daughters and victims, the clean hand washing that 
so deeply polluted. Children derelict of their parents 
— wrecks of drunkenness, ignorance, and crime — 
must find fathers and mothers in the public lap. 
Nay, the poor fool, whom in " the ages of faith " 
kings and popes mocked at, who, rigged with motley 
cap and bells, went a hideous jest, the companion of 
apes, in theologic and monarchic courts, and even in 
the humane Bible was pointed at with dreadful hoot- 
ings, in the new democracy must now be lifted up to 
the dignity of man. Even the abortions of humanity 
must be respected and beloved. Walls of partition 
fall away from between us ; the patient philanthropist 
knows no race but the human, no class but of men and 
women. The Turk must not be oppressed, though 
the unity of Christendom be broke to rescue him ; and 
now the foremost nations of the Latin and the Teu- 
tonic church join hands to help the Mahometan 
against the Christian of Russia. 5 " The Jews are 
the slaves of the church," said St. Thomas Aquinas, 
" which can dispose of their goods." Now the Jew 
must have the same rights as the Christian, for these 
depend on human nature itself. Wars must cease; 

the fetters fall from the limbs of the slave; if Chris- 
1—6 



82 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



tian theology chain him, the chain will drag down the 
unmanly church. The savage must be fed with the 
science of the civilized. Woman must be the equal 
of man, rejoicing in the same ecclesiastic, political, 
social, domestic, and individual rights, commensurate 
with her duties and her nature; and so the garden 
wherein God put the choicest human mold and 
planted the divinest seeds of heaven, long trodden 
under foot and made the common-shore of ambition 
and of lust, must now bring forth its natural flowers 
of humanity, whose fragrance is the breath of God, 
and their fruit for the healing of the nations. 

Behold the great philanthropies of our time! But 
in this work — the greatest work of the most noble 
age — the servants of the ecclesiastical institutions 
can do little in their professional capacity. As reli- 
gious men, they may do much ; as " theological minis- 
ters," how little ! True, there are noble ministers, 
worthiest followers of Jesus of Nazareth; nay, lead- 
ers far in advance of that Son of God, in the nine- 
teenth century venturing where he never trod, nor 
could not step so long ago, who engage in all these 
noble deeds of humanity. But they are heretics, 
really, if not all plain to see ! The mass of minis- 
ters, what do they care for the bondage of the slave, 
the degraded position of woman, for the vices of the 
age, which cheat man of his birthright? They can 
quote theology to prove them all virtues. It is their 
function to " baptize " men, or babies rather, to 
" convert " them to the popular theology, admit them 
to the church, to a dispensation of wine and bread in 
the meeting-house, and bury their bodies when dead; 
not to humanize and elevate them to great manhood. 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 83 



With those five false theological ideas, what can thirty 
thousand ministers do? What they do! I find no 
peculiar fault with them; I pity far more than I 
blame, for I know too well how ecclesiastical educa- 
tion blinds the eye with thick bandages of old preju- 
dice, and then is called " teaching man to see with 
the Spirit." The ecclesiastical minister is to alter the 
disposition of God, not that of man. He is to deal 
with the " original sin " inherited from " Adam," not 
the actual offenses against natural law which originate 
with you and me. He is to help a few men out of 
hell; it is not lust, drunkenness, gaming, violence, 
idleness, theft, murder — vices of passion ; it is not 
pride, vanity, covetousness, ambition, deceit, cruelty, 
and lust for power and all the other vices of calcula- 
tion, which cast men down; they are damned for the 
taint of Adam, " the fault of our general human na- 
ture," not for our personal misconduct as Emily and 
James. Adam's sin is the Cerberus of the Christian 
mythology; there in hades he crouches, keenly scent- 
ing the " guilt " of the " unredeemed," and with piti- 
less baying hounds them off to hell. The ecclesiastical 
minister is to help express a few lean and hungry souls 
to heaven ; but the ticket demanded at that slow-yield- 
ing gate is not the golden branch plucked from the 
tree of life, planted, indeed, by God, but watered, 
tended, husbanded by us, radiant with youthful flow- 
ers, and rich with manly fruit of every virtuous sort; 
no, it is a certificate of " baptism," of " conversion " 
to the opinion of the Catholics or the Quakers, or 
other little sect, or that he is tattooed all over with 
some man's ancient whim; no healthy spot of natural 
skin left whole. Adamitic virtue is not welcome there, 
" salvation is by Christ." Not a sect in the Chris- 



84 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



tian world proclaims " salvation " by character, by 
honest efforts to do a man's best; not one demands 
the moral development of all the faculties as the great 
work of life, and the service of God! Each sect is 
termagant to war against the fictitious sin of Adam; 
not one is strongly militant to fight against the inci- 
dental errors of our historic development, the great 
vices which lay waste the sons and daughters of men. 
They can compass sea and land to make one proselyte, 
and then teach him that there is " no higher law." 
" American slavery is a divine institution," and " the 
fugitive slave bill is worthy of the church of Christ." 
" According to their pasture so are they filled." Can 
you expect better work from such tools? Who 
would cut down the woods of Nebraska with an Indian 
axe of stone? What if you had only the industrial 
tools of the Pennsylvania red man three hundred years 
ago? How would your harvests look? Where would 
your cities shine? 

I say there was never so much normal action of the 
higher faculties in man; but there is no ecclesiastical 
institution which can organize and direct this action, 
or even encourage it. In the churches of America, Mr. 
Polk and Mr. Webster are counted better Christians 
than George Washington or Benjamin Franklin. No 
philanthropist ranks so high as the authors of the 
fugitive slave bill. Slavery is " orthodox," " Chris- 
tian." Aye, is of the Christian theology! There is 
no popular theology, no science of religion to go forth 
in advance of the age, with its great idea of God and 
of man, a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, 
leading us out of the house of bondage, through red 
seas and sandy deserts, to the land of promise. The 
Hebrew church, which brought Israel up out of 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 85 



Egypt, perished in Jerusalem; the Buddhistic poorly 
feeds the half-civilized millions of Asia. The Ma- 
hometan church, which once led the Semites to such 
wide victory, has twice been broken by the dreadful 
Teutonic arm, and now sees her crescent in its last 
quarter; its silver light is too feeble for nations to 
walk by on the path of science, letters, or noble manly 
life, and the morning comes on apace. The once 
powerful church, so badly misnamed, which honors 
only the Christ of fiction, not yet the Jesus of fact, 
with her triple crown of nationalities — Greek, Latin, 
German — no longer sits the heir of all the ages, and 
the queen of civilization. Twice the ministers of this 
ecclesiastical institution have led the movements of 
the Western world. Once, when they felt the warm 
breath of that great Hebrew Peasant — a poor 
woman's child, cradled among the oxen at Bethlehem 
■ — and walking by the evening splendor reflected from 
his genius just gone down, all filled and inspired by 
the womanly comeliness and manly sublimity of his 
life, the apostles and martyrs — two by two, they 
wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they 
found no city to dwell in; hungry and thirsty, their 
soul fainted not, but went from one kingdom to an- 
other people, few in number and strangers in it, de- 
spised and rejected of men — they led the world with 
their austere piety and victorious confidence in God. 
Once again the Christian clergy, richly endowed, with 
studious men in their well-fed ranks, had a monopoly 
of superior education; they alone kept alive the torch 
of science, once lighted by that spark which Greek 
Prometheus had brought down from God; their gar- 
den alone escaped the barbaric flood, the new deluge, 
which so wasted all the world besides, and therein 



86 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



many a choice plant of ancient husbandry still grew, 
enriching its literary bloom with all the sweetness and 
mysterious meaning of ancient times ; yea, new plants 
therein sprung up, by spontaneous generation from 
the all-quickening life of nature. Then the fathers 
and doctors — wide-browed, their tall heads worn 
with thought — they led the world ; and as a symbol 
of their intellectual mastery, straightway sprang up 
new organizations of matter, the vast cathedrals of 
the Western world, those flowers of stone, the hang- 
ing gardens of the Latin church, which still amaze 
the world, whereto the elements seemed moving 'neath 
the orphic impulse of creative mind. Then, too, came 
forth those priestly companies of monks and nuns — 
the master mind new organized in mortal men, un- 
armed and armed the most — who tyrannized over ty- 
rants, and ruled the world by hope and fear, with 
tragic witchery of thought. 

But that Teutonic giant who smote the Roman 
state, and doubly smote Mohamet's power, has also 
broke the Latin church. For three hundred years no 
great and world-compelling thinker is her son. Now 
she is a widow. No other church assumes her ancient 
and imperial rank. The printing press has slain the 
Pope. Since Luther spoiled the ecclesiastic charm, — 
still more, since the American and French Revolution 
wrenched in twain so many a yoke, the Christian 
church has ceased to lead the religious feelings and 
philosophic thoughts of men, which whoso rules, hold- 
ing the heart and head of Christendom, perforce con- 
trols the civilization of mankind, and guides the col- 
umn, and directs the march. The more than apostolic 
piety, which evangelizes its beatitudes of philanthropy 
to suffering mankind; the orphic intellect which far 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 87 



outgoes the mediaeval mind, and thinks into being rail- 
roads, factories, steam-ships, electric telegraphs, and 
crystal palaces of mechanic art, or builds up vast 
commonwealths of men — this is not " divine," or of 
theologic thought, but natural " carnal reason," " re- 
bellious and profane " — the Christian religion, no 
doubt, but not Christian theology at all. 

The ecclesiastical institutions of Christendom are 
now to enlightened Europe and America what the 
Hebrew theology was to the thoughtful Israelites, 
when "all Jerusalem went out" to John the Baptist; 
yea, what the classic mythology was in Rome and 
Athens when Paul of Tarsus set thitherward his manly 
feet. Now, as then, the more enlightened soothsayers 
dare not in public look each other in the face, lest the 
spontaneous laugh betray the calculated cheat; now, 
as then, the ecclesiastic institution builds tombs to old 
prophets, while it stones the new; sustains man-steal- 
ing, passes fugitive slave bills, whitens its neckcloth, 
devours widows' houses, and for a pretense makes long 
prayers. Now, the Sadducee has " renounced the 
world," and joined the Pharisaic church! Why not? 
It costs him naught; it is a church of theology, and 
its " religion has nothing to do with politics ; " noth- 
ing with trade; nothing with life. 

All the great world-sects have done service to man- 
kind ; each of the three still living — Buddhistic, Chris- 
tian, Mohametan — is of value still. Not a Chris- 
tian sect but has yet some work to do ; rears a little 
herb, else neglected, or picks a crumb which falls 
from mankind's table, whence even the fragments 
must be gathered up and nothing lost. The dreadful 
theology I have spoken of ; nay, the five false ideas 
therein, though the most ghastly errors of human con- 



88 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



sciousness, have still been of service to the world. He 
maketh the wrath of man to praise him! What grim 
laws of our fathers' day went before the humane legis- 
lation of their sons ! What wars once reddened the 
land where now but peaceful cities stand! Produc- 
tive industry ; the slave is father of that swarthy queen ! 
Astrology and alchemy were once the sciences which 
filled the ablest heads of Europe. Without these there 
had been no Leibnitz and Newton, no Humboldt and 
La Place. Let us do no injustice to the wild-man, with- 
out garments for his limbs, or language for his baby 
thoughts. Abraham, in the mystic story, could faith- 
fully offer up his son a human sacrifice to his concep- 
tion of a blood-devouring deity. Let us honor an- 
cient fidelity ; when mankind was a child he thought as 
a child ! Nay, let us be patient with men whom defect 
of nature, or the perversion of their schooling, makes 
fit to think such sacrifice could ever be commanded by 
the God who made the world. Chide not the slow 
march of the red man in the woods, his captive wife 
bearing his burthens on her feeble back; mock not at 
his little cockle of bark which barely skims a stream, 
while our railroad train, on our iron tracks, a town of 
people in its arms, drives through the land with more 
than windy speed; or, while our ship, propelled by 
steam, can bear a burthen of many a hundred tons, and 
front all the fierceness of the Atlantic sea. By the 
errors of our fathers, yea, brothers, let us, in all humil- 
ity, be taught. 

Allow all the service which the Christian church 
has done — nay, more, still does ; yet her day of 
power is long since gone by. The open and pro^ 
fessed atheism of a few scientific men, who think 
they think there is no God; the wide-spread doubt 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 89 



of thoughtful men, who are not certain of any 
conscious mind which plans the world and so in- 
sures the destination of mankind; the half-ac- 
knowledged distrust of immortalit y ; the American 
politician's scornful denial of any law of God above 
the lowest lusts of the profligate or the most cruel cal- 
culations of the madly ambitious, and the American 
ministers' cowardly assent thereto; the fact that all 
reformers who mean the people's good find readiest and 
longest-continued opposition from the church; the 
added fact that great masses of sober, thoughtful, 
moral and religious men and women — farmers, trad- 
ers, mechanics, scholars too — have no faith in the 
popular theology, attend meeting only on sufferance, 
while the minister himself has no confidence in the 
" foolishness of his preaching," which is not weighty 
with argument, but only heavy with routine, knows not 
what to say, and abandons speech on all which touches 
daily life or a nation's work ; — all this shows that the 
ecclesiastical institutions of Christendom do not, nay, 
cannot lead the religious man who could know God and 
love him too; cannot even scare the trader in wicked- 
ness who has set his heart on pleasure, office, gold, and 
power, nor fright the glutton from his beastly lust! 
The established church of France and England dares 
not rebuke a governmental sin. In the land of Luther 
the king is the minister, a German Pope ecclesiastic, all 
free speech flies even from his colleges, and dwells with 
" Atheists." The British Bishops are less religious 
than the " Manchester school of politicians " in the 
House of Commons; are ever at war with human na- 
ture. In 1850, and ever since, you saw how deep this 
rottenness had forced its way into the American 
churches. Even the Senate was outdone in practical 



90 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



atheism; it was the pulpit would send its mother into 
bondage for ever ! 6 

But what then? Truth has not perished! 

" The word unto the prophet spoken 
Was writ on tables yet unbroken; 
The word by seers or sybils told, 
In groves of oak or fanes of gold, 
Still floats upon the morning wind, 
Still whispers to the willing mind. 
One accent of the Holy Ghost 
The heedless world has never lost." 

No doubt these are times of great danger, and those 
who have always leaned on the crutch of authority will 
find it hard to stand when that crutch is broken. But 
the child must sometime walk alone, or never be a man. 
It is by experiment that mankind learns to walk. Let 
us rejoice in the day when humanity assumes the manly 
dress ! One day these ecclesiastical institutions must 
be left behind us, like so many others long since passed 
by ; and man, through thousand perils, will fare forth 
to his land of promise, and thence to another yet more 
fair ! 

In briefest words, this is what we want: To develop 
the religious faculty with the same freedom as the 
intellectual in science, literature, and business. This 
must be done individually, each one by himself seek- 
ing inspiration from the soul of the world, the infinite 
father, infinite mother ; and socially not less — men 
coming together to quicken each other as iron sharp- 
eneth iron — for the genius of one man, one woman, 
will kindle ten, yea, ten million, and, at last, the world 
of men, as a single candle will light a thousand if 
tipped itself with fire. We must avoid the Roman 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 91 



error, not count a church infallible; the German error, 
not worship a book ; the mistake of the whole Christian 
sect, who take Jesus of Nazareth for a finality, as 
Master, not Servant, sacrifice the development of the 
race to reverence one great lofty man, and worship as 
God what they should love as a brother, and as men 
should have long since outgrown. Thus only shall we 
get the good of the Catholic and Protestant churches, 
of the Hebrew and the Christian Bible; thus only 
learn the life of Jesus — come to God as he came, face 
to face, with no mediator, nor need of attorneys and 
go-betweens. Who shall plead to God for me? doth 
not he know? Though a prodigal, come back from 
riotous living, my substance spent, shoved away by 
swine from their husks which I would fain fill myself 
withal, shame-faced and sorrow-stained, conscious that 
I am not worthy to be called a son, asking only a serv- 
ant's bread, I know that the infinite Father sees me a 
great way off, and the infinite Mother will fall on my 
neck, enfolding me to the all-bounteous bosom whence 
I came. Yea, my elder brothers shall take part in the 
joy over one sinner that repents, because the lost is 
found again and the dead come home alive! 

These are the ideas which will be written on the ban- 
ner of some future church, and borne as the oriflamme 
of nations of progressive friends marching out of 
Egypt to lands of promise ever new : — There is a God 
of infinite perfection, perfectly powerful, wise, just, 
loving, and holy, the perfect cause and providence of 
all that is; he creates from a perfect motive, of perfect 
material, for a perfect purpose, as a perfect means; 
the absolute religion is the service of this God by the 
normal use, discipline, and development of every limb 
of the body, every faculty of the spirit, and all power 



92 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



which we possess. We may make a paradise of peace- 
ful industry, and find an immortal Eden too. 

Friends and brethren! this day is a marked one in 
my life. Fourteen years ago, the 19th of May, 1841, 
I preached an ordination sermon in Boston, " A Dis- 
course of the Transient and Permanent in Christian- 
ity." It was the first " ordination sermon " I ever 
preached; the first separate document I ever published 
with my own name. It cost me my reputation in the 
" Christian Church ; " even the Unitarian ministers, 
who are themselves reckoned but the tail of heresy, de- 
nounced me as " no Christian," an " Infidel." They 
did what they could to effect my ruin; denied me all 
friendly intercourse, dropped me from committees of 
their liberal college, in public places refused my hand 
extended as before in friendly salutation; mocked at 
me in their solemn meetings; struck my name out of 
their Almanac, the only Unitarian form of excommuni- 
cation; and in every journal, almost every pulpit, de- 
nounced the young man who thought the God who 
creates earth and heaven had never spoken miraculously 
in Hebrew words bidding Abraham kill his only son 
and burn him for a sacrifice, and that Jesus of Naza- 
reth was not a finality in the historical development of 
mankind. Scarce a Protestant meeting-house in Amer- 
ica, not a single theological newspaper, I think, but 
blew its trumpet with notes of alarm and denunciation. 
Behold! said they, behold a minister thinking for him- 
self afresh on religion! actually thinking! and believ- 
ing his thoughts ! and telling his own convictions ! He 
tells us God is not dead! that the Bible is not his last 
word; that he inspires men now as much as ever, even 
more so. Surely this man is an " Infidel," a " Deist," 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 93 



nay, an " Atheist." Down with him ! Nay, one ven- 
erable orthodox minister, still living, published a letter 
calling on the authorities of the commonwealth to send 
this young " blasphemer " to the state's prison for 
three years, according to law in such case made and 
provided ! 7 

So went it with ministers and at Boston. Some of 
them were honest; theology had blinded their eyes. 
But other men and women gathered about me, a few at 
first — some of them ministers — upheld my hands 
and strengthened my heart, and in their consciousness 
I saw reflected the facts of my own. Now there are 
thousands, and voices from distant lands, speaking 
with other tongues, come o'er the sea with words of 
lofty cheer. No man in his day of trial had ever 
heartier, nobler friends — women and men. 

Since that, my first attempt, I have had no part in 
any such ecclesiastical ceremony for fourteen years. 
Now you, all strangers to my voice, have asked me to 
come more than three hundred miles to rejoice with 
progressive friends in the first opening of this new 
commodious house. The lines have fallen to you in 
pleasant places. May the spirit of God filling houses 
made with hands, and transcending the heaven of 
heavens, dwell with you and bless you for ever and 
ever. May you 

" aloft ascending, breathe in worlds 

To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil, 

All strength, all terror, single or in bands, 

That ever was put forth in personal form; 

Jehovah — with his thunder, and the choir 

Of shouting angels, and the empyreal thrones — 

Them pass you unalarmed. Not chaos, not 

The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, 

Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out 



94 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



By help of dreams, can breed such hope and awe 
As fall upon us often when we look 
Into our minds — into the mind of man." 

" Beauty — a living presence of the earth, 
Surpassing the most fair ideal forms 
Which craft of delicate spirits hath composed 
From earth's materials — waits upon your steps; 
Pitches your tents before you as you move, 
An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves 
Elysian, fortunate fields — like those of old 
Sought in th' Atlantic main — why should they be 
A history only of departed things, 
Or a mere fiction of what never was? 
For the discerning intellect of man, 
When wedded to this goodly universe 
In love and holy passion, shall find these 
A simple produce of the common day. 
— I, long before the blissful hour arrives, 
Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse 
Of this great consummation; and by words 
Which speak of nothing more than what we are, 
Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep 
Of Death, and win the vacant and the vain 
To noble raptures." 

- -~- "May your life 
Express the image of a better time, 
More wise desires and simpler manners; nurse 
i Your heart in genuine freedom: — all pure thoughts 
Be with you; so shall your unfailing love 
Guide, and support, and cheer you to the end." 

What an admirable opportunity to build up new ec- 
clesiastical institutions with the idea of the infinite per- 
fection of God, and absolute religion, the natural serv- 
ice of the actual God, normal life the sacrament! 
Here is complete freedom to think as we will, and build 
our human fabric never so high; no law of man for- 
bids. How intelligent are the men of all these North- 
ern states ; the women the best instructed in the world. 
What is elsewhere not common, temperance and indus- 
try, the body's piety, insures us bread. No foreign 
foe aff rights ; at home no tyrant sucks the nation's 



ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS 95 



strength and lies a nightmare on her breast. And 
how firm are the wide foundations of the democratic 
commonwealth! How swiftly riches accumulate! What 
material beauty adorns the affluent land. The wind is 
not freer than the mind to think, and speak with iron 
lips, and lightning for its tongue. There are five-and- 
twenty millions of men, one-fortieth of the world's 
great family, cradled in a single nest. Oh that there 
were a church to brood them with not unworthy wings, 
warm them with sentiments of love and trust in God, 
feed them with truth, and lead them forth a joyous 
flock to occupy the land with blessed human life. 

What opportunities, and what a waste of them ! 
Has any nation more deserved rebuke? A democracy, 
and every eighth man a slave! Jesus the god of the 
church, and not a sect that dares call slavery a sin! 
The most prominent sects defending it as " patriar- 
chal," even " Christian." Shame on us ; the actual 
Jesus of history we have forgot, worshipping only the 
fictitious Christ, not Hebrew Mary's Son ! There are 
thirty thousand ministers in the land; what if they all 
preached natural religion — piety, morality, — and 
natural theology, the philosophy of that religion ! 
What a world it would soon become! There are more 
than forty thousand congregations in the one-and- 
thirty states ; what if they all were penetrated with the 
idea of God's infinite perfection, his perfect power, 
wisdom, justice, holiness, and love; sought normal in- 
spiration from the soul of all, in whom we live, and 
move, and have our being; who lives, and moves, and 
has his being in the world of matter and of mind, yet 
far transcending both; and served him by aspirations 
after great, magnanimous, and manly life! One day 
it will be so ; and these great truths will, like the early 



96 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



light, move around the world waking a morning psalm 
of beauty in the material heaven above and earth be- 
neath; and from all animated things, and chief of all 
from spiritual man, persuading forth a conscious 
hymn of adoration, thanks, and trust, and love, 
wherein, with well-accordant voice, island shall call to 
island, and continent respond to continent, and mortal 
with the immortal go quiring on the eternal and aspir- 
ing harmony ! 

" Nearer, my God, to Thee ! 
Nearer to Thee! 
E'en though it be 

A cross that raiseth me, 
Still all my song shall be, — 
Nearer, my God, to Thee, 
Nearer to Thee ! ' 



Ill 



THE BIBLICAL, ECCLESIASTICAL AND PHIL- 
OSOPHICAL NOTION OF GOD 

1. Conception of God in the Bible 

2. The Ecclesiastical Conception of God 

3. The Natukal and Philosophical Idea of God 

4. The Soul's Nokmal Delight in God 



1—7 



97 



1 



CONCEPTION OF GOD IN THE BIBLE 

For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire. — Deut. iv, 24. 
God is love. — I John iv, 16. 

In the human race nothing is ever still; the stream 
of humanity rolls continually forward, change follow- 
ing change; nation succeeds to nation, theology to 
theology, thought to thought. Taken as a whole, this 
change is a progress, an ascent from the lower and 
ruder to the higher and more comprehensive. Indi- 
viduals die, special families pass off, nations go under; 
and a whole race, like the American Indians, may per- 
ish, and their very blood be dried up from the ground ; 
yet still mankind survives, and all the material or 
spiritual good achieved by any race, nation, family, in- 
dividual, reverts at last to mankind, who not only has 
eminent domain over the earth but is likewise heir at 
history of Moses, of the Heraclides, of Egypt, and of 
the American Indians. So of much that slips out from 
the decaying hand of the individual or the race, noth- 
ing is ever lost to humanity ; much is outgrown, nought 
wasted. The milk-teeth of the baby are as necessary 
as the meat-teeth, the biters and grinders of the adult 
man. Little Ikie Newton had a top and a hoop ; spin- 
ning and trundling were as needful to the boy as math- 
ematical rules of calculation to the great and world- 
renowned Sir Isaac. The progress of mankind is con- 
tinous and onward, as much subject to a natural law of 
development as our growth from babyhood to adult 
life. 

99 



100 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



You see this change and progress in all departments 
of human activity, in religion and theology, as distinct 
as in spinning and weaving. Theological ideas are in- 
struments for making character, as carpenters' tools 
for making houses. Take the long sweep of four thou- 
sand years that history runs over, and the improve- 
ment in theological ideas is as remarkable as the change 
in carpenters' tools. You see this progress especially 
in the conception of God, and in the worship that is 
paid to him conformable to that conception. Here the 
change is continuous, and the progress is full of en- 
couragement for the future. 

What unlikeness in the conceptions of God which 
Christian men have to-day ! The notion of God set 
forth in certain churches differs from yours and mine 
more than Moloch differ from Jehovah. Certainly the 
God which some ministers scare their congregations 
withal, is to me only a devil — a devil who has no ex- 
istence, and never appears out of the theological grave- 
3 T ard, where this ghost of buried superstitions " walks " 
from time to time to frighten men into the momentary 
panic of a revival. 

The Bible has become the sacred book of all Chris- 
tendom. It is not only valued for its worth, which is 
certainly very great, but still more for its fancied au- 
thority — because it is thought to be a revelation, 
made directly and miraculously by God, to certain men 
whom he inspired with the doctrine it contains. Now, 
God must know himself, and that perfectly, and if he 
make a revelation thereof, he must portray himself ex- 
actly as he is. So it is maintained in all Christendom, 
that to learn the character of God, you are not to go 
to the world of matter, or to the world of man, but 
only to revelation, which mirrors back to you his exact 



GOD IN THE BIBLE 101 



image and likeness ; giving you God, the whole of God, 
and nothing but God. Accordingly, it is said that the 
conception of God is the same in all parts of the Bible, 
howsoever old or new, without variableness or shadow 
of turning. 

But when you come to look at the Bible itself, and 
study it part by part, and then put the results of your 
study into a whole, you find a remarkable difference in 
regard to the character of God himself, that depends 
on the general civilization and enlightenment of the 
times and the writers; the further you go back, the 
ruder all things become. Take the whole of Greek lit- 
erature, from Homer, eleven hundred years before 
Christ, to Anna Comnena, eleven hundred years after 
him, and there is a great change in the poetic represen- 
tations of God. The same thing happens in the books 
of the Bible. They extend over twelve or thirteen 
hundred years ; it may be, perhaps, fourteen hundred. 
Perhaps Genesis is the oldest book, and the Fourth 
Gospel the newest. What a difference between the God 
in Genesis and that in the Fourth Gospel! Can any 
thoughtful man conceive that these two conflicting and 
various notions of God, could ever have come from the 
same source? Let any one of you read through the 
book of Genesis, and then the Fourth Gospel, and you 
will be astonished at the diversity, nay, the hostility 
even, between the God in the old book and the new one. 
Then, and at some subsequent time, look at the various 
books between the two, and you see what different no- 
tions of the Divine Being there are in this " infallible 
miraculous revelation of God." 

Let us look at this great matter in some details, and 
to see just what the facts are; and to make the whole 



102 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



matter as clear as noonday light, divide the Bible into 
its three great parts, the Old Testament, the Apocry- 
pha, and the New Testament. In the Old Testament, 
Genesis may perhaps have been written in its present 
form, about a thousand years before Christ, though 
some scholars put it a few hundreds of years nearer 
our own time; at any rate it seems to have been com- 
piled from ancient documents, some of them, per- 
haps, existing thirteen or fourteen hundred years 
before the birth of Christ, though others are 
clearly later. The book of Daniel, a spurious 
work, was evidently written between 170 and 160 
years before Christ. In the Apocrypha, the book of 
Ecclesiasticus is, perhaps, the oldest work, and seems 
to have been written about 180 years before the birth 
of Jesus. The latest book is the Wisdom of Solomon, 
of uncertain date. In the New Testament, Paul's 
Epistle to the Galatians is the oldest, and was perhaps 
written 58 or 60 years after Christ; the Fourth Gos- 
pel, I think, is the last, and was written, perhaps, 120 
or 140 years after Christ. There are seventy books 
in the canonical and apocryphal Bible. With the ex- 
ception of fourteen prophets, Ezra, Nehemiah, David 
and Asaph — the two authors of some thirty or forty, 
perhaps fifty of the Psalms, — we know the name of 
no writer of the nine-and-thirty books of the Old Tes- 
tament. Of the Apocrypha we know the name of the 
writer of the book of Ecclesiasticus, of him no more; 
of others not even that. In the New Testament it 
seems clear that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Gala- 
tians, that to the Romans, the two to the Corinthians ; 
but I doubt if we are certain who 'wrote any other of 
its twenty-seven books! Here, then, out of seventy 
biblical books, containing the writings of more than 



GOD IN THE BIBLE 



103 



one hundred authors, we know the names of fourteen 
Hebrew prophets, two psalmists, two other writers in 
the Old Testament, one in the Apocrypha, one in the 
New Testament — twenty men ! This fact that we 
know so little of the authorship of the biblical books is 
fatal to their authority as a standard of faith, but it 
does not in the smallest degree affect their value as re- 
ligious documents, or as signs of the times when they 
were written. I don't care who made the vane on the 
steeple, if it tell which way the wind blows — that is 
all I want. 

I don't know who reared these handsome flowers ; 
it matters not ; their beauty and fragrance tell their 
own story. 1 We know the time the documents came 
from, and they are monuments of the various ages, 
though we know not who made or put them to- 
gether. 

Now look at the conception of God in the first and 
last of these three divisions. Of course, in the brevity 
of a morning's sermon I can only select the most re- 
markable and characteristic things. I shall begin with 
the oldest part of the Old Testament, and end with the 
latest part of the New. 

I. At first, it seems, the Hebrews believed in many 
gods, and no effort of the wisest and best men could 
keep the nation from falling back to idolatry for cen- 
turies. It was not until after the Babylonian captivity, 
which began in 586 B. C, and ended about eighty 
years later, that the Israelites renounced their idolatry ; 
then contact with monotheistic and civilized people cor- 
rected this vice. 

At first, in the Bible, Jehovah appears as one God 
amongst others, and seems to have his council of gods 



104 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



about him. Next he is the special God of the descend- 
ants of Jacob, and called the God of Israel. By and 
by he is represented as stronger than any of the other 
gods ; he can beat them in battle, though sometimes he 
gets worsted. 

Finally he is the only God, and has regard for all 
nations, though he still takes special care of the He- 
brews, who are his chosen people. The book of Job, 
I think, is the only one in the Old Testament which 
makes it appear that God cares for all men alike, and 
this seems to be the only book in the Old Testament 
which was not written by a Jew. I think it is one of 
the latest books in that collection. 

Now, see what character is ascribed to God in the 
earliest documents of the Bible. The first five books 
of Moses are the oldest ; they contain the most rude and 
unspiritual ideas of God. He is represented as a very 
limited and imperfect being. He makes the world in 
six days, part by part, one thing at a time, as a me- 
chanic does his work. He makes man out of dust, in 
" his own image and likeness," breathes into him, and 
he becomes a living soul. God looks on the world, 
when he has finished it, and is pleased with his work, 
" and behold it was very good." But he is tired with 
his week's work, rests on the seventh day, and " was re- 
freshed." The next week he looks at his work, to see 
how it goes on, and he finds that he must mend it a 
little. All animals rejoice in their mates, but thought- 
ful Adam wanders lone ; he must have his Eve. So God 
puts him into a deep sleep, takes one of his ribs, makes 
a woman of it, and the next morning there is a help- 
meet for him. But the new man and woman behave 
rather badly. God comes down and walks in the gar- 
den in the cool of the day, calls Adam and Eve, in- 



GOD IN THE BIBLE 105 



quires into their behavior, chides them for their mis- 
conduct; and, in consequence of their wrong deed, he 
is very angry with all things, and curses the serpent, 
curses Eve, curses Adam, and even the ground. The 
man and woman have tasted of the tree of knowledge, 
and he turns them out of the garden of Eden lest they 
should also eat of the tree of life, and thereby live for- 
ever. By and by God repents that he made man, and 
" it grieved him at his heart," they behave so badly ; so 
in his wrath he sweeps off all mankind, except eight 
persons; but after the flood is over, Noah offers a 
burnt offering, and God smells the sweet savor and is 
pacified, and says he will not again curse the ground; 
and he will never destroy the human race a second time. 

To know what happens, he must go from place to 
place: thus he understands that the people are build- 
ing a tower, and comes near enough to look at it, and, 
not liking the undertaking, he says, " Go to now, let 
us go down and confound their language, that they 
may not understand one another's speech : " he scatters 
them abroad, and they cannot build the tower, which 
was to reach up to heaven. Afterwards he hears bad 
news from Sodom and Gomorrah, that " their sin is 
grievous." He does not quite credit the tidings, and 
says, " I will go down now, and see whether they have 
done altogether according to the cry of it, which is 
come unto me, and if not, I will know." He talks with 
Abraham, who pleads for sparing the wicked city, beats 
Abraham in argument, and, " as soon as he had left 
communing with Abraham," " the Lord went his way." 

God appears to men visibly — to Adam, Noah, Ab- 
raham, Jacob, and to Moses. He talks with all those 
persons in the most familiar way, in the Hebrew 
tongue : " The Lord talked to Moses face to face, as a 



106 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



man speaketh with his brother." He makes a bargain 
with Abraham, then with Jacob and his children. It 
is solemnly ratified, for good and sufficient considera- 
tion on both sides. It is for value received. God con- 
veys a great quantity of land to Abraham and his pos- 
terity, and guarantees the title ; they are to circumcise 
all their male children eight days after birth; that is 
the jocular tenure by which they hold Palestine. God 
swears that he will keep his covenant, and though some- 
times sorely tempted to break it, he yet adheres to the 
oath: 

" And though he promise to his loss, 
He makes the promise good." 

He dines with Abraham, coming in unexpected one 
day. Abraham kills a calf, " tender and good." Sarah 
makes cakes of fine meal, extemporaneously baked on 
the hearth. Butter and milk are set forth, and God, 
with two attendants, makes his dinner ! 

While Moses was travelling from Midian to Egypt, 
the Lord met him at a tavern, and " sought to kill 
him;" but Moses's wife circumcised her son before 
God's eyes, so God let the " bloody husband " go. 

He is partial, hates the heathen, takes good care of 
the Jews, not because they deserve it, but because he 
will not break his covenant. He is j ealous ; he writes it 
with his own finger in the ten commandments : " I, 
the Lord thy God, am a jealous God;" and again, 
" Jehovah, his name is jealous." He is vain also, and 
longs for the admiration of the heathen; and is dis- 
suaded by Moses from destroying the Israelites when 
they had provoked him, lest the Egyptians should hear 
of it, and his fame should suffer. 

Look at this account of one of God's transactions in 



GOD IN THE BIBLE 107 



Numbers xiv. " And the Lord said unto Moses, How 
long will this people provoke me? And how long will 
it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have 
showed among them? I will smite them with the pesti- 
lence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a 
greater nation, and mightier than they." And Moses 
replied : " Then the Egyptians shall hear it, and they 
will tell it to the inhabitants of the land ; " they will 
say, " Because the Lord was not able to bring the peo- 
ple into the land which he sware unto them, therefore 
he hath slain them in the wilderness ; " " Pardon, I be- 
seech thee, the iniquity of this people ! " So, lest the 
Gentiles should think him weak, Jehovah lets the He- 
brews off for a time, and instead of destroying millions 
of men at once, he spreads their ruin over several years. 
" In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there 
they shall die!" 

He is capricious, revengeful, exceedingly ill-tem- 
pered ; he has fierce wrath and cruelty; he is angry 
even with the Hebrews, and one day says to Moses, 
" Take all the heads of the people (that is the leading 
men, the citizens of eminent gravity), and hang them 
up before the Lord against the sun." 

Once God is angry with the people who murmur 
against Moses, and says to him, " Get you up from 
among this congregation, that I may consume them as 
in a moment ! " Moses is more merciful than his God ; 
he must appease this Deity, who is " a consuming fire." 
So he tells Aaron, " Take a censer, and put fire therein 
from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly 
unto the congregation, and make an atonement for 
them: for there is wrath gone out from the Lord; the 
plague is begun ! " Aaron does so, and the plague was 
stayed, though not till the fury of the Lord had killed 



108 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



fourteen thousand and seven hundred men! (Numb, 
xvi, 41—50). God hates some of the nations with re- 
lentless wrath; Abraham interferes, pleading for 
Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses for the Israelites, but no- 
body cares for the rest of the people, or burns incense 
for them, and so God says, " I will utterly put out the 
remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." All the 
Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the 
Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites, are to be 
rooted out — seven nations, each of which was more 
numerous than the Hebrews : " Thou shalt smite them, 
and utterly destroy them ; thou shalt make no covenant 
with them, nor show mercy unto them," saith the Lord. 
The Canaanites and Moabites were kindred of the He- 
brews, of the same ethnologic tribe, but they could not 
enter into the congregation of the Lord unto the tenth 
generation ! 

This God — powerful, terrible, partial, jealous, 
often ill-tempered, wrathful, cruel, bloody — is to be 
worshipped with sacrifice, the blood of bulls and goats, 
with costly spectacles by the priesthood, who sacrifice 
to him in a special place, at particular times ; and God 
gives the most minute directions how all this shall be 
done, but he is not to be served in any other way, at 
any other place. 

Such seems to have been the conception of God with 
the leading minds of the Hebrews at the beginning of 
their national existence, or at the later day when the 
early books were deceitfully compiled. Now see how 
much they outgrew it at a later day. 

The highest Old Testament idea of God you find in 
the Proverbs and the later Psalms, which were written 
only four or five hundred years after the promulgation 
of those extraordinary documents which I have just 



GOD IX THE BIBLE 



109 



quoted. In these God is represented as all-wise, and 
always present everywhere. You all remember that ex- 
quisite Psalm, the cxxxixth, " Whither shall I go from 
thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? " 
There God is unchangeable ; his eyes are in every place, 
beholding the evil and the good; no thought can be 
withheld from him. What grand and beautiful con- 
ceptions of God are there in Psalms ciii, civ, cvii ! So 
in almost the whole of that admirable collection, which 
is the prayer-book of Christendom to-day, and will be 
till some man with greater poetic genius, united with 
the tenderest piety, such as poets seldom feel, shall 
come, and, in the language of earth, sing the songs of 
the Infinite God. 

There is a great change also in the manner of wor- 
ship. At first it was a mere external act — offering 
sacrifice, a bull, a goat, a lamb; nay, God commands 
Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and the father is about to 
comply, but the Deity changes his own mind and pre- 
vents the killing of the boy. Listen to this from Psalm 
li, and see what a change there is : " Have mercy upon 
me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness, accord- 
ing unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out 
my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine 
iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Create in me a 
clean heart, O God ; and renew a right spirit within 
me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take 
not thy Holy Spirit from me. For thou desirest not 
sacrifice ; else would I give it : thou delightest not in 
burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken 
spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt 
not despise." 

Look at this from Hosea : " I desire mercy and not 
sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt- 



110 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



offering." Or this of Micah : " What doth the Lord 
require of thee, but to do justly and love mercy, and 
walk humbly with thy God? " What a progress from 
the early times ! But even to the last book of the Old 
Testament there is the same wrath of God. The world 
has seen no such cursing as that of the Jews in the 
name of Jehovah. Take the cixth Psalm, and I will 
defy the hardest of you to wish worse and crueller 
things than the author imprecates against his enemies : 
— " Set thou a wicked man over him, and let Satan 
stand at his right hand. When he shall be judged, let 
him be condemned ; and let his prayer become sin. Let 
his days be few; and let another take his office. 
Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. 
Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg ; let 
them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. 
Let the extortioner catch all that he hath ; and let the 
stranger spoil his labor. Let there be none to extend 
mercy unto him; neither let there be any to favor his 
fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off ; and 
in the generation following let their name be blotted 
out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered 
with the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be 
blotted out. Let them be before the Lord continually, 
that he may cut off the memory of them from the 
earth. ... As he clothed himself with cursing 
like as with a garment, so let it come into his bowels 
like water, and like oil into his bones," vs. 6-15, 18. I 
quote these because they are seldom read, while the 
devout and holy portions of the Psalms are familiar to 
all men. 

In Bibles which have laid on the pulpit for fifty 
years, and those read in private from generation to 
generation, the best parts are worn out with contin- 



GOD IN THE BIBLE 111 



ous use, while the evil passages are still fresh and 
new. 

I think no Old Testament Jew ever got beyond this : 
" Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: yet I 
loved Jacob and hated Esau," (Mai. i, 2, 3). A 
Psalmist speaks of God as pursuing his enemies with 
wrath " like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of 
wine." The Lord God of Israel says to his people, " I 
myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand, 
and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in fury, and 
in great wrath." " I have set my face against this city 
for evil and not for good." If they do not repent, his 
" fury will go forth like fire, and burn that none can 
quench it ; " and " this house shall become a desola- 
tion." 

Here is a terrible picture of the Hebrew God, 
sketched by the hand of a great master some time after 
the Babylonian captivity. There had been a great 
battle between the Edomites and Hebrews; God comes 
back as a conqueror, the people see him, and the fol- 
lowing dialogue takes place: 

People: — Who is this that cometh from Edom? 

In scarlet garments from Bozrah? 
This that is glorious in his apparei, 
Proud in the greatness of his strength? 

Jehovah: — I that proclaim deliverance, 
And am mighty to save. 

People: — Wherefore is thine apparel red, 

And thy garments like those of one that treadeth 
the wine-vat? 

Jehovah : — I have trodden the wine- vat alone, 

And of the nations there was none with me. 
And I trod them in mine anger, 
And I trampled them in my fury, 



112 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



So that their life-blood was sprinkled upon my 

garments, 
And I have stained all my apparel. 
For the day of vengeance was in my heart — 
I trod down the nations in my anger; 
I crushed them in my fury, 
And spilled their blood upon the ground." * 

" Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits," 
says the proverb ; it is not less true of nations than of 
men. The religious, but idolatrous Jews met a mono- 
theistic people in their captivity in Babylon, and came 
back with better ideas. Yet much of the old theological 
evil lingered still. Ezra, Nehemiah, and the author of 
the book of Daniel, devout men, intensely bigoted, knew 
only " the great and dreadful God; " that is the name 
the last of them calls Jehovah. But from the first five 
books of the Old Testament to the Proverbs and later 
Psalms there is great progress. 

II. You come to the New Testament, and here you 
do not find much literary excellence in the writers. 
Wild flowers of exquisite beauty spring up around the 
feet of Jesus ; only in the Revelation do you find any 
thing which indicates a large talent for literature, 
neither the nature which is born in the man of genius, 
nor the art which comes from exquisite culture. The 
Fourth Gospel was writ, apparently, by some Alexan- 
drian Greek, a man of nice philosophic culture and 
fancy. Paul had great power of deductive logic. A 
grand poetic imagination appears in that remarkable 
book, the Apocalypse. But, taken as a whole, in re- 
spect to literary art, the New Testament is greatly 
inferior to the best parts of the Apocrypha and Old 



* Dr. Noyes' translation. 



GOD IN THE BIBLE 113 



Testament. It compares with Job, the Psalms, Isaiah, 
Jeremiah, Ecclesiasticus, and the Wisdom of Solomon, 
as the works of the early Quakers compare with 
Hooker, Taylor, Herbert, Cudworth and Milton ; and 
yet, spite of the lack of culture, literary art, and poetic 
genius, in the New Testament as in Fox, Nayler, Penn, 
and other early Quakers, there is a spirit not to be 
found in the well-born and learned writers who went 
before. 

1. In the New Testament, look first at the concep- 
tion which Jesus has of God. I shall take it only from 
the first three Gospels. In that according to Matthew 
I think we have his early notion of God. He calls him 
Father. The same word is now and then applied to 
God in the Old Testament, but there I think it means 
only Father to the Jews, not to other nations. But 
it seems that some of the Greeks and Jews in Jesus's 
own time applied it to him, as if he were the father of 
all men. As Jesus makes the Lord's Prayer out of the 
litanies which were current in his time, so he uses the 
common name for the Deity in the common sense. With 
him God alone is good, and our Father which is in 
heaven is perfect. " He maketh his sun to rise on the 
evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and 
on the unjust." He pities and forgives the penitent, 
as in that remarkable story of the Prodigal Son. With 
what tender love does Jesus say, " There is joy in 
heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over 
ninety and nine just persons, who need no repentance." 
Such noble thoughts come out in that time as " shines 
a good deed in a naughty world." But what becomes 
of the impenitent wicked? God has no love for them; 
they shall go into everlasting punishment. So along- 
side of God there is a devil, and to the left hand of 
1—8 



114 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



heaven, there is a dreadful, fiery, endless hell, whither 
a broad way leads down, and the wide gates stand 
ever open, and many there be who go in thereat. 

At first Jesus limited his teachings to the Jews ; he 
would not take the children's bread and give it unto 
the dogs ; he declared that not a j ot or title of the 
Mosaic ceremonial law should ever fail ; he told his dis- 
ciples to keep all that the Scribes and Pharisees com- 
manded, because they sat in Moses's seat. But by-and- 
by he nobly breaks with Judaism, violates the ritual 
law, puts his new wine into new bottles. With admira- 
ble depth of intuitive sight he sums up religion in one 
word, Love — love to God with all the heart, and to 
one's neighbor as himself. Fear of God seldom ap- 
pears in the words of Jesus. Fear is the religion of 
the Old Testament. Mercy is better than sacrifice. 
Men go up to heaven for righteousness and philan- 
thropy, and no question is asked about creed or form. 
Other men go down to hell for ungodliness ; and no 
straining at a gnat would ever save him who would 
swallow down a whole camel of iniquity. Human liter- 
ature cannot show a dearer example of tenderness to a 
penitent wicked man than you see in the story of the 
Prodigal Son, which yet the first Evangelist rejected, 
and two others left without mention. 

All nationality disappears before Jesus. His model 
man is a Samaritan. We hear that word commonly 
used, and do not understand that the Jews hated a 
Samaritan as the old New England Federalists hated a 
Jacobin, as the British used to hate a Frenchman, or as 
a Southern slaveholder hates a Black Republican 2 
to-day. Depend upon it, it created as much sensation 
amongst men who heard it when Jesus told this story 
of the Good Samaritan, as it would in Virginia to have 



GOD IN THE BIBLE 115 



some one represent a Negro as superior to all the 
" first families " of the state, on account of some great 
charity that he had done. 

I do not find that Jesus altered the common idea of 
God which he found. He was too intent on practical 
righteousness to attend to that. Besides, he was cut 
off when but about thirty years of age; had he lived 
longer, it may be that he would have reformed the pop- 
ular notion of God; for there are some things in the 
words that drop like honey from his lips which to me 
indicate a religious feeling far beyond his thought. 

2. In the writings of Paul you find more speculation 
about God than with Jesus, for Paul was mainly a 
theological man, as Jesus was mainly a pious and phil- 
anthropic man. Jesus could start a great religious 
movement; Paul could make a theology out of his 
hints, and found a sect. But the most important char- 
acteristic of Paul's idea of God is this : God's wrath 
was against all ungodliness in Jew or Gentile, and he 
was as accessible to Gentile as to Jew. Nationality 
vanishes, all men are one in Christ Jesus, God is God 
to all, to punish the wicked and reward the righteous 
who have faith in Christ ; the Jews are as wicked as the 
rest of mankind, and are to be equally saved by faith 
in Christ, and by that alone. Paul's Christ is not the 
Jesus of history, but a mythological being he conjured 
up from his own fancy. He says that the invisible God 
is clearly made known by the visible material world, 
and conscience announces God's law to the Gentiles as 
effectually as revelation declares it to the Jews. That 
is a great improvement on the Old Testament idea of 
God, as presented even in the Psalms. 

3. In the Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle at- 
tributed to John — both incorrectly attributed to him 



116 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



— the idea of God goes higher than elsewhere in the 
New Testament. God is mainly love. He dwells in 
the souls of men who love each other and love him, and 
is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, not only in 
Jerusalem, but anywhere and everywhere. Perfect 
love casteth out fear. 

This God has an only-begotten Son, to whom he has 
given the spirit without measure, put all things under 
his hand ; he who believes on the son shall have everlast- 
ing life, but he who does not believe on the son shall not 
see life. Christ's commandment is that they love one 
another, and to those God will give another comforter, 
the Spirit of Truth, who shall abide with believers for- 
ever; nay, Christ will manifest himself to them. But 
this God has created a devil, who will send all unbe- 
lievers into endless torment. 

Thus ends the last book of the New Testament. 
What a change from Genesis to the Fourth Gospel. 
What a difference between the God who eats veal and 
fresh bread with Abraham, and commands him to make 
a burnt offering of his own son, who conveys all Pales- 
tine on such a jocular tenure, and the God whom no 
man hath seen at any time; who is spirit and is to be 
worshipped in spirit and in truth ; who is love, and who 
dwells with all loving and believing souls ! There are I 
know not how many hundred years between the two — 
what a series of revolutions ! what vast progress of 
mankind had filled up that brief period of time ! 

But the idea of God which you gather from the 
Bible is quite unsatisfactory to a thoughtful and 
deeply religious man to-day. In the Old Testament 
there is no God who loves the Gentiles ; he made the 
world for the Jews; all others are only servants — 



GOD IN THE BIBLE 117 



means, not ends. This being so, the Hebrew thought 
himself the only favorite of God; his patriotism be- 
came intense contempt for all other nations — was a 
part of his religion. In the New Testament, the God 
whom even Jesus sets before mankind has no love for 
the wicked; there is no providence for them; at the last 
judgment he sends them all to hell, bottomless, endless, 
without hope; their worm dieth not, their fire is not 
quenched ; no Lazarus from Abraham's bosom will ever 
give Dives a single drop of water to cool his tongue, 
tormented in that flame. Jesus tells of God, also of 
the devil ; of heaven, with its eternal blessedness await- 
ing every righteous man, and of the eternal torment 
not less open and waiting for every one who dies im- 
penitent. Paul narrows still more this love of God to- 
wards men; it includes only such as have faith in 
Christ; no man is to be saved who does not believe in 
Paul's idea of Christ. The author of the Apocalypse 
constricts it still further yet; he would cast out Paul 
from heaven ; Paul is called a " liar," " of the syna- 
gogue of Satan," and other similar names. The 
Fourth Gospel limits salvation to such as believe the 
author's theory of Christ, that he was a God, and the 
only-begotten Son of God, an idea which none of the 
three Evangelists, nor Paul, nor James, nor Simon 
Peter, seems ever to have entertained. I think that 
Jesus never held such a doctrine as what Paul and the 
writer of the Fourth Gospel makes indispensable to sal- 
vation. 

To the Jews every Gentile seemed an outcast from 
God's providence. To the early followers of Jesus all 
unbelievers were also outcasts ; " he that believeth and 
is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall 
be damned." I find no adequate reason for thinking 



118 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



Jesus ever spoke these words, found only in the doubt- 
ful addition to the second canonical Gospel. Yet there 
seems evidence enough to show that Jesus himself really 
taught that ghastly doctrine, that a great wickedness 
unrepented of entailed eternal damnation on an immor- 
tal soul. Paul says human love never fails, it suffers 
long and is kind, yet both he and the man whom he half 
worshipped, teach that God has no love for the wicked 
man who dies in his impenitence; endless misery is his 
only destination. Neither in the Old Testament nor in 
the New do you find the God of infinite perfection, in- 
finite power, wisdom, justice, love; it is always a limited 
God, a deity with imperfect wisdom, justice, love; God 
with a devil beside him, the created fiend getting the 
victory over his creator ! The Bible does not know that 
Infinite God, who is immanent in the world of matter 
and man, and also lives in these flowers, in yonder 
stars, in every drop of blood in our veins ; who works 
everywhere by law, a constant mode of operation of nat- 
ural power in matter and in man. It is never the dear 
God who is responsible for the welfare of all and each, 
a Father so tender that he loves the wickedest of men 
as no mortal mother can love her only child. Does 
this surprise you? When mankind was a child, he 
thought as a child, and understood as a child ; when he 
becomes a man he will put away childish things. 

How full of encouragement is the fact of such a 
growth in man's conception of God, and his mode of 
serving him! In the beginning of Hebrew history, 
great power, great self-esteem, and great destructive- 
ness, are the chief qualities that men ascribe to God. 
Abraham would serve him by sacrificing Isaac; Joshua, 
a great Hebrew filibuster, by the butchery of whole 
nations of men, sparing the cattle, which he might keep 



GOD IN THE BIBLE 



119 



as property, but not the women and children. This 
was counted service of God, and imputed to such ma- 
rauders for righteousness. In the notion of God set 
forth in the Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle as- 
cribed to John, it is love which preponderates, and by 
love only are men to serve God. With Jesus it is only 
goodness which admits men to the kingdom of heaven, 
and there is no question asked about the nation, creed, 
or form; but this sweet benediction is pronounced: 
" Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these my 
brethren, ye did it unto me ; " " Come, ye blessed, in- 
herit the kingdom prepared for you from the founda- 
tion of the world ! " 

Shall you and I stop where the New Testament did? 
We cannot, if we would, and it is impious to try. 
What if Moses had been content with the Egyptian 
chaos of a deity, " where every clove of garlic was a 
god; " what if Jesus had never broke with the narrow 
bounds of Judiasm ; what if Paul had been content with 
" such as were Apostles before him, 59 and had stuck at 
new moons, full moons, circumcision and other abomina- 
tions, which neither he nor his fathers were able to bear ; 
where would have been the Christian church, and where 
the progress of mankind ? No we shall not stop ! It 
would be contraray to the spirit of Moses, and still 
more contrary to the spirit of Jesus, to attempt to ar- 
rest the theological and religious progress of mankind. 

God in Genesis represents the conception of the 
babyhood of humanity. Manhood demands a different 
conception. All round us lies the world of matter, 
this vast world above us and about us and beneath; it 
proclaims the God of nature ; flower speaking unto 
flower, star quiring unto star ; a God who is resident 
therein, his law never broke. In us is a world of con- 



120 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



sciousness, and as that mirror is made clearer by civil- 
ization, I look down and behold the natural idea of God, 
infinite cause and providence, father and mother to all 
that are. Into our reverent souls God will come as the 
morning light into the bosom of the opening rose. 
Just in proportion as we are faithful, we shall be in- 
spired therewith, and shall frame " conceptions equal 
to the soul's desires," and then in our practice keep 
those " heights which the soul is competent to win." 



ECCLESIASTICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD 

The great and dreadful God. — Daniel, ix, 4. 
Our Father which art in heaven. — Matthew vi, 9. 

In the Religion of civilized man there are three 
things: piety, the love of God, the sentimental part; 
morality, obedience to God's natural laws, the practical 
part ; and theology, thoughts about God and man and 
their relation, the intellectual part. The theology 
will have great influence on the piety and the morality, 
a true theology helping the normal development of re- 
ligion, which a false theology hinders. There are two 
methods of creating a theology, — a scheme of doctrines 
about God and man, and the relation between them, 
viz. : the Ecclesiastical and the Philosophical. 

The various sects which make up the Christian 
church pursue the ecclesiastical method. They take 
the Bible for a miraculous and infallible revelation 
from God, in all matters containing the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and thence de- 
rive their doctrines, — Catholic, Protestant, Trinita- 
rian, Unitarian, Damnationist or Salvationist. Of 
course they follow that method in forming the eccle- 
siastical conception of God, in which the Christian sects 
mainly agree. They take the whole of the Bible, from 
Genesis to the Fourth Gospel, as God's miraculous affi- 
davit; they gather together all which it says about 
God, and from that make up the ecclesiastical concep- 
tion as a finality. The Biblical sayings are taken for 
God's deposition as to the facts of his nature, char- 

121 



122 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



acter, plan, modes of operation — God's word, his last 
word ; they are a finality, all the evidence in the case ; 
nothing is to be added thereto, and naught taken thence 
away. Accordingly the statement of a writer in the 
half -savage age of a ferocious people is just as val- 
uable, true, and obligatory for all time, as that of a re- 
fined, enlightened, religious man in a civilized age and 
nation ; for they are all equally God's testimony in the 
case, his miraculous deposition; God puts himself on 
his voir dire, and it is of no consequence which justice 
of revelation records the affidavit of the divine depo- 
nent. The deposition is alike perfect and complete, 
whether attested by an anonymous and half-civilized 
Hebrew filibuster, or by el refined and religious Chris- 
tian philosopher. The statement that God ate veal at 
Abraham's, or that he sought to kill Moses in a tavern, 
is just as true and important as this, that " God is 
love." It is said in the Old Testament that the Lord is 
a " consuming fire ; " he is " angry with the wicked 
every day," and keeps his anger forever ; that he hates 
Esau; that he gives cruel commands, like that in the 
thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, forbidding all re- 
ligious progress ; that he orders the butchery of mil- 
lions of innocent men, including women and children; 
that he comes back from the destruction of Edom red 
with blood, as described in the sixty-third chapter of 
Isaiah. In the New Testament he is called Father; it 
is said that he is love, that he goes out and meets the 
returning prodigal a great ways off, and welcomes him 
with large rejoicing. 

Now, say the churches, all these statements are true, 
and the Christian believer must accept them all. Rea- 
son is not to sift and cross-examine the Biblical testi- 
mony, rejecting this as false and including that as 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOD 123 



true ; for the whole of this evidence and each part of it 
is God's affidavit, and does not require a cross-examin- 
ing, sifting, amending. We are not toi reconcile it to 
us, but us to it; and if it conflict with reason and con- 
science, we should give them up. All the Bible, says 
this theory, is the inspired Word of God, and one part 
is just as much inspired as another, for there are no 
degrees of inspiration therein ; each statement by itself 
is perfect, and the whole complete. The test of in- 
spiration is not in man ; it is not truth for things reason- 
able, nor justice for things moral, nor love for things 
afFectional. The test is wholly outside of man; it is a 
miracle — that is, the report of a miracle ; and so what 
contradicts the universal human conscience is to be ac- 
cepted just as readily as what agrees with the moral 
instinct and reflection of all human kind. In the third 
century Tertullian, a hot-headed African bishop, said, 
" I believe, because it is impossible ; " that is, the thing 
cannot be, and therefore I believe it is ! It has been a 
maxim in ecclesiastical theology ever since; without it 
both transubstantiation and the trinity would fall to 
the ground, with many a doctrine more. I think Lord 
Bacon was an unbeliever in the popular ecclesiastical 
doctrines of his time; he would derive all science from 
the observation of nature and reflection thereon ; but he 
left this maxim to have eminent domain in theology ! 
It was enough for him to break utterly with the phi- 
losophy of the schools, he would not also quarrel against 
the theology of the churches ; thereby he lost his scien- 
tific character, but kept his ecclesiastical reputation. 

Joshua, the son of Nun, was a Hebrew filibuster, 
with a half-civilized troop of ferocious men following 
him; he conquered a country, butchered the men, 
women, and children ; and he gives us such a picture of 



124 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



God as you might expect from a Pequot Indian in the 
days of our fathers. It is taught in the churches that 
Joshua's statement about God is just as trustworthy as 
the sublime words in the New Testament, ascribed to 
John or Jesus ; and far more valuable than the deepest 
intuitions, and the grandest generalizations of the most 
cultivated, best educated, and most religious of men 
to-day! The Christian churches do not derive their 
conception of God from the world of observation about 
us, or the world of consciousness within us, but from 
the " Book of Revelation," as they call that collection 
from the works of some hundred writers, mostly anony- 
mous, and all from remote ages ; and they tell us that 
the teachings of Joshua are of as much value as the 
teachings of Jesus himself, far more than those of 
Fenelon or Channing. 

Now from such facts, and by such a method, the 
Christian sects have formed their notion of God, which 
is common to the Greek, the Latin, and the Teutonic 
churches; only a few sects have departed therefrom, 
and as they are but insignificant in numbers, and have 
had scarcely any influence in forming the ecclesiastical 
conception of God, so I shall omit all reference to them 
and their opinions. 

To-day I shall not speak of the ecclesiastical arith- 
metic of God, only the ethics thereof; not of God ac- 
cording to the category of number, the quantitative dis- 
tribution of Deity into personalities ; only of the char- 
acter of God by the category of substance, the quali- 
tative kind of Deity, for that is still the same, whether 
conceived of in one person, in three, or in three mil- 
lion, just as the qualitative force of an army of three 
hundred thousand soldiers is still the same, whether you 
count it as one corps or as three. 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOD 



125 



Look beneath the mere words of theology, at the 
things which they mean, and you find in general that 
the ecclesiastical conception of God does not include 
Infinite Perfection. It embraces all the true and good 
things from the most religious and enlightened writers 
of the Bible, but it also contains all the ill and false 
things which were uttered by the most rude and fero- 
cious; one is counted just as true and valuable as the 
other. Accordingly God is really represented as a 
limited being, exceedingly imperfect, having all the 
contradictions which you find between Genesis and the 
Fourth Gospel; he is not infinite in any one attribute. 
I know the theological language predicates infinite per- 
fection, but the theological facts affirm exceeding im- 
perfection. Look at this in several details, 

1. God is not represented as omnipresent. When 
the theologian says, " God is everywhere," he does not 
mean that God is everywhere always, as he is anywhere 
sometimes ; not that he is at this minute present in this 
meeting-house, and in the air which my hand clasps, 
as he was in the Hebrew Holy of Holies when Solomon 
ended his inauguration prayer, as he always is in some 
place called the heaven of heavens. There are degrees 
of the divine presence ; he is more there and less here. 
Some spots he occupies by his essence, others only po- 
tentially. He was creationally present with all his per- 
sonal essence at the making of the world, but only prov- 
identially present with his instrumental power, not his 
personal essence, at the governing of the world. Thus 
the Queen of England, by her power, is present in all 
Great Britain and the British possession, while by her 
person she occupies only a single apartment of the pal- 
ace of St. James in London, sitting in only one chair 
at a time. So it is taught that God must intervene 



126 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



miraculously to do his work, must come into a place 
where he was not before, and which he will vacate soon. 
So the actual, personal, essential and complete presence 
of God is the very rarest exception in all places save 
heaven. He is instantial only in heaven, exceptional 
everywhere else. He is not universally immanent, re- 
siding in all matter, all spirit, at every time, working 
according to law, by a constant mode of operation and 
in all the powers of the matter and man, which are de- 
rived from him and are not possible without him; but 
he comes in occasionally and works by miracle. He is 
a non-resident God, who is present in a certain place 
vicariously, by attorney, and only on great occasions 
comes there in his proper person. That is the eccle- 
siastical notion of omnipresence. 

2. He is not all-powerful, except in the ideal heaven 
which he permanently occupies by his complete and 
personal presence. On earth he is restricted by man, 
who thwarts his plans every day and grieves his heart, 
and still more by the devil, who continually thwarts his 
creator. I know the ecclesiastical doctrine says that 
God is omnipotent, but ecclesiastical history represents 
him as trying to make the Hebrews an obedient people, 
and never effecting it; as continually worrying over 
that little fraction of mankind, " rising up early and 
speaking 99 to them, but the crooked would not be made 
straight. Nay, he is unable to keep the Christian 
church without spot or wrinkle for a single generation, 
charm he never so wisely ; but Paul fell out with such as 
were apostles before him, and the seamless ecclesiastical 
coat is roughly rent in twain betwixt the two ! 

3. He is not all-wise. He does not know how his 
own creation will work. He finished the world, and 
found that his one man, running alone, did not pros- 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOD 127 



per; it was necessary to make a woman, to help him; 
she was an afterthought. Her first step ruins the man 
she was meant to serve; and God is surprised at the 
disobedience. He must alter things to meet this unex- 
pected emergency; he grows wiser and wiser by con- 
tinual experiment. 

4. He is not all-righteous. He does great wrong to 
the Egyptians, for he hardens Pharaoh's heart, so that 
he may have an excuse for putting the king and peo- 
ple to death. He does injustice to the Canaanites, 
whom he butchers by Joshua; he provides a punish- 
ment altogether disproportionate to the offenses of men, 
and will make them suffer forever for the sin committed 
by their mythological ancestor, six thousand years be- 
fore you and I were born ; he creates souls by the mil- 
lion, only to make them perish everlastingly. In the 
whole course of human history, you cannot find a ty- 
rant, murderer, kidnapper, who is so unjust as God is 
represented by the ecclesiastical theology. 

5. He is not all-loving. Of the people before 
Christ, he loved none but Jews; he gave no other any 
revelation, and without that, they must perish everlast- 
ingly! Since Jesus he loves none but Christians, and 
will save no more; the present heathen are to die the 
second death ; and of Christians he loves none but 
church-members. Nay, the Catholics will have it, that 
he hates everybody out of the Roman church, while 
the stricter Protestants retaliate this favor upon the 
Catholics themselves. Nay, they deny salvation to all 
Unitarians and Universalists, to the one because they 
declare that the man Jesus was not God the creator; 
and to the other because they say that God the Father 
is not bad enough to damn any man forever and ever. 
You remember that scarcely was Dr. Channing cold in 



128 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



his coffin, before orthodox newspapers rung with intelli- 
gence that he was doubtless then suffering the pangs of 
eternal damnation, because he had " denied the Lord 
that bought him." You know the damnation pro- 
nounced on old Dr. Ballou, simply because he said men 
were brethren, and the God of earth and heaven is too 
good-hearted to create anybody for the purpose of 
crunching him into hell forever and ever. According 
to some strict sectarians, God loves none but the elect — 
an exceedingly small number. It has been the doctrine 
of the Christian church for fifteen or sixteen hundred 
years that God will rej ect from heaven all babies newly- 
born who die without baptism; the sprinkling of in- 
fants was designed to save these little ones, who, as 
Jesus thought, needed no salvation, but were already of 
the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly, to save the souls 
of children ready to perish without ecclesiastical bap- 
tism, the Catholic church mercifully allows doctors, 
nurses, midwives, servants, anybody, to baptize a child 
newly bora, by throwing water in its face in the name 
of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and that saves the 
little thing. But the doctrine of infant damnation fol- 
lows logically from the first principles of the ecclesias- 
tical theology. " He that believeth and is baptized 
shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be 
damned ! " 

6. He is not all-holy, perfectly faithful to himself. 
He is capricious and variable ; men can wheedle him 
into their favorite plans ; now by penitence or a certain 
belief, they can induce God to remove the consequences 
of their wicked deeds; and the effects of a long life of 
wickedness will all at once be miraculously wiped clean 
off from the man's character ; he will take the blackest 
of sinners and wash him white in the blood of the lamb, 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOD 129 



and " in five minutes he shall be made as good a Chris- 
tian as he could become by fifty years of the most per- 
fect piety and morality." Since God is thus change- 
able, men think they can alter his plan by their words, 
can induce him to send rain when they want it, or to 
" stay the bottles of heaven " at their request, to check 
disease, to curse a bad man, or to prevent and confound 
the intellect of a thinking man. Hence comes the 
strange phenomenon which you sometimes see of a na- 
tion assembling in the churches, and asking God to 
crush to the ground another people at war with them ; 
two years ago you saw Englishmen bending their knees 
in the name of Christ, to ask God to blast the Russians 
at Sebastopol, and the Russians bending their knees 
and in the same name asking God to sink the British 
ships in the depths of the Black Sea ! 

Put all these things together — God is not repre- 
sented as a perfect creating cause, who makes all things 
right at first ; nor a perfect preserving providence, who 
administers all things well, and will bring all out right 
at last. Even his essential presence is only an excep- 
tion in the world, here for a moment, and then long 
withdrawn. According to the ecclesiastical conception, 
God transcends man in power and wisdom, but is im- 
mensely inferior to the average of men in justice and 
benevolence; nay, in hate and malignity he transcends 
the very worst man that the very worst man could con- 
ceive of in his heart ! 

I. Now, this idea of God is not adequate to the pur- 
poses of science. To explain the world of matter, the 
naturalist wants a sufficient power which is always 
there, acting by a constant mode of operation ; not ir- 
regular, vanishing, acting by fits and starts ; but con- 
1—9 



130 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



tinuous, certain, reliable; an intelligent power which 
acts by law, not caprice and miracle. No other God 
is adequate cause of the universe, or of its action for a 
single hour. 

But the Christian church knows no such God, for all 
the Biblical depositions concerning him, all the pre- 
tended affidavits whence it has made its conception of 
God, came from men who had no thought of a general 
law of matter or of mind, and no notion of a God who 
acted by a constant mode of operation, and who was 
the indwelling cause of providence of all things that 
are. Just so far as any scientific thinker departs from 
that limited idea of God, who comes and goes and works 
by miracle, so far does he depart from the ecclesiastical 
theology of Christendom. The actual facts of the uni- 
verse are not reconcilable with what the ecclesiastical 
theology teaches about God. This has become appar- 
ent, step by step, in the last three centuries. 

Galileo reported the facts of astronomic nature just 
as they were. The Roman church must silence her phi- 
losopher, or else revolutionize her notion of God. Had 
not she God's own affidavit that he stopped the sun and 
moon a whole day, to give Joshua time for butchery of 
men, women, and children ? Would she allow a philoso- 
pher to contradict her with nothing but the universe 
on his side? He must swear the earth stands still. 
" And yet it does move though ! " 

Geologists relate the facts of the universe as they 
find them in the crust of the earth. The churches com- 
plain that these facts are inconsistent with the story in 
Genesis. " We have," say they, " God's deposition 
that he made the universe in six days, rested on the 
seventh, and was refreshed ! What is the testimony of 
the rocks and the stars, to the anonymous record on 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOD 131 



parchment, or the printed English Bible? " So the 
geologist also has a bad name in the churches, many 
equivocate, and some lie. 

For the history of the heavens and earth, theologians 
would rely on the word of a man whose name even they 
know nothing of, and reject the testimony of the uni- 
verse itself, where the footprints of the Creator are yet 
so plain and deeply set. Zoologists find evidence, as 
they think, that the human race has had several distinct 
centres of origination, that men were created in many 
places ; and a great outcry is at once raised. Such 
facts are inconsistent with the ecclesiastical idea of 
God! So, to learn the structure of the heavens, the 
earth, or of mankind, you must not go to the heavens, 
the earth, or mankind; you must go to the Book of 
Genesis, and if the facts of the universe contradict the 
anonymous record therein, then you must break with 
the universe and agree with the minister, for the actual 
testimony of things is worth nothing in comparison 
with the words of a Hebrew writer whom nobody 
knows ! 

The great obstacle to the advancement of science, 
nay, to the diffusion of knowledge, is not the poverty of 
mankind, not the lack of industry, talent, genius 
amongst men of science ; but it is the ecclesiastical con- 
ception of God. Not a step can be taken in astronomy, 
geology, zoology, but it separates a man from that no- 
tion. The ecclesiastical conception of God being thus 
utterly inadequate to the purposes of science, philo- 
sophic men turn off from the theology of Christendom ; 
and some, it is said, become atheists. Look at the sci- 
entific men of England, France, and Germany for 
proof of this. In America there is no considerable 
class of scientific and learned men, who stand close to- 



132 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



gether, write books for each other, and so make a little 
public of their own; so here the scientific man does 
not stand in a little green-house of philosophy as in 
Europe, where he is sheltered from public opinion, lives 
freely, and expands his flowers in an atmosphere con- 
genial to his natural growth, but he is exposed to all 
the rude blasts of the press, the parlor, and the meet- 
ing-house; so is he more cautious than his congeners 
and equivalents in Europe, and does not commonly tell 
what he thinks; nay, sometimes tells what he does not 
think, lest he should lose his public reputation amongst 
bigoted men ! To this there are some very honorable 
exceptions; scientific men who do not count it a part 
of their business to prop up a popular error, but who 
know society has a right to demand that they tell the 
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But 
if you will take the hundred foremost men of science 
in all Christendom who are not ministers, I do not 
think that ten of them have any belief in the common 
ecclesiastical conception of God. Some have better, 
nay, a true idea of God, but dare not divulge it; and 
some, alas ! seem to have no notion at all. Accordingly, 
men of science turn from theology ; some become athe- 
ists, and all lose much from lack of a satisfactory idea 
of God. You all know what clerical complaints are 
made of the infidelity and atheism of scientific men. 
Three hundred years ago the church suspected doctors, 
and invented this proverb : — " As many doctors, so 
many atheists," because the doctors knew facts irrecon- 
cilable with the ecclesiastical theology. I think the 
charge of atheism grossly unjust, when it is brought 
against the great body of scientific men; but where it 
is true, it ought to be remembered that in the last two 
hundred and fifty years the Christian church has had 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOD 133 



no idea of God adequate to the purposes of science, and 
fit for a philosopher to accept ; and if it be so, will you 
blame the philosopher for rejecting what would only 
disturb his processes? The cause of the philosopher's 
atheism often lies at the church's door, and not in the 
scholar's study. . 

II. But this ecclesiastical conception of God is as in- 
adequate to the purposes of religion as of science. In 
religious consciousness we all want a God whom we can 
absolutely rely upon ; who is always at hand, not merely 
separate and one side from the world of matter or the 
world of man. We want a deity who acts now, and is 
the Infinite God, who desires the best of possible things 
for each man, who knows the best of possible things, 
and has will and power to bring about the best of possi- 
ble things, and that for all persons. We want a God 
all-powerful, all-wise, all-just, all-loving, all-faithful; 
a perfect creator; a perfect provider, who will be just 
to each of his children. I put it to each one of you — 
thoughtf ulest or least-thinking — is there one of you 
who will be content with a God who does not come up 
to your highest conception of power, wisdom, justice, 
love, and holiness? Not one of you will be content to 
rely on less ! You must falsify your nature before you 
can do it. But according to the ecclesiastical concep- 
tion, God is the most capricious, unjust, unreliable of 
all possible beings. Look at this old and venerable 
doctrine of eternal damnation, believed by all the 
Christian sects, save the Universalists, Unitarians, and 
Spiritualists — not yet a sect — who make at the most 
some four or five millions out of the two hundred and 
fifty or sixty millions of Christendom. This is the 
doctrine : — God is angry with mankind, and will burn 



134 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



the greater part of them in hell, forever and ever. 
Why is " his wrath so hot against us ? " 

1. The Jews are God's ancient covenant people; 
with them he made a bargain, sworn to on both sides : 
it was for a good and sufficient consideration, value re- 
ceived by each party; he commanded them to observe 
the Mosaic form of religion forever; if any prophet 
shall come, working never so many miracles, and teach 
them a different conception of God, they must put him 
to death, and all his followers, with their wives, their 
children, and their cattle. — Deut. xiii. But now all 
these " chosen people " are to be damned forever be- 
cause they do not believe the theology of Paul and 
Jesus, whom the divine law commands the Jews to slay 
with the edge of the sword for teaching that theology. 
So God commands the Jews to kill every man among 
them who shall teach the Christian doctrine, and yet 
will damn them for not believing it. 

2. The heathen also are to be damned because they 
have no faith in Christ, no belief in the popular the- 
ology of the Catholic or Protestant sects. But that 
theology is unreasonable, and thoughtful, unprejudiced 
men cannot believe it; besides that, the greater part of 
the heathens never heard of such doctrines, or of 
Christ ; still God will damn them, millions by millions, 
to eternal torment, because they have not believed what 
was never preached to them, what they never heard they 
must believe. Three hundred years ago Spanish 
Jesuits preached the doctrine of eternal damnation to 
the heathen at Japan, who asked of the missionaries, 
"Is it possible that God will damn men forever?" 
" Certainly, without doubt," was the reply. " And if 
a man dies who has not heard of these things before, 
will God damn him forever?" "Yes," was the an- 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOD 135 



swer. The whole multitude fell on their faces and 
wept bitterly and long, and would not believe it. Do 
you blame them for casting those priests from the 
island, and saying, " Let the salt sea separate us from 
the Christian world forever." 

3. Then the Christians themselves are not certain of 
their salvation. The Catholics are the majority, and 
they say God will damn all the Protestants; the Prot- 
estants say the same of the Catholics. The ecclesi- 
astical idea of God in both represents him as ready 
enough to damn either ; and if the first principle of the 
Catholic church be true, no Protestant can be saved; 
and if the first principle of the Protestant church be 
true, then every Catholic is sure of damnation and 
nought besides. 

See how the Protestants dispose of one another. 

(1.) All "unconverted" and positively wicked men 
are to be damned ; God has no love for them, only hate. 

(2.) All " unconverted " men, not positively wicked ; 
they have no salvation in them; they may be the most 
pious men in the world, the most moral men, but their 
own religion cannot save them. They must have 
" faith," — that is, belief in the ecclesiastical theology 
— and be church-members ; that is, they must believe as 
Dr. Banbaby believes, and be voted into some little 
company called a church, at the Old South or the New 
North, or some other conventicle. 

(3.) New-born babies not baptized must be shut out 
from the kingdom of heaven, if not included in the 
kingdom of hell; such has been the doctrine of the 
Christian church from the time of Justin Martyr, who 
I think first broached it seventeen hundred years ago, 
and it follows with unavoidable logic from the ecclesi- 
astical notion of God and the ecclesiastical method of 



136 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



salvation. So Jesus must have made a great mistake 
when he took babies in his arms, and blessed them, and 
said, " Suffer little children to come unto me, and for- 
bid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven ; " 
— he ought to have said, " Suffer baptized children to 
come unto me," etc. 

Now what confidence can you have in such a God, so 
unjust, so unloving, so cruel, and so malignant? I 
just now said that God is represented as transcending 
men in hate and malignity. Look at the matter care- 
fully, narrowing the thing down to the smallest point. 
Suppose there are now a thousand million persons on 
the earth, and that only one shall be damned ; and sup- 
pose that some day a hundred years hence, all the nine 
hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and nine 
thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine of us are gath- 
ered in the kingdom of heaven, enjoying all the blessed- 
ness that divine love can bestow on the vast faculties of 
man, still further enhanced by the first taste of immor- 
tal life ; suppose that intelligence is brought to all and 
each of us that one man is miserable, languishing in 
eternal fire, to be there forever; suppose we are told 
that a globe of sand, big as this earth, hangs there 
before his comprehensive eye, and once in a thousand 
years a single atom is loosened and falls off, and he 
shall suffer the crudest torment till, grain by grain, 
millennium after millennium, that whole globe is con- 
sumed and passed away; and yet then he shall be no 
nearer the end of his agony than when he first felt the 
smart. Suppose we are told it was the worst man of 
all the earth, that it was a murderer, a violator of vir- 
gins, a pirate, a kidnapper, a traitorous wretch, who, 
in the name of democracy sought to establish a despot- 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOD 137 



ism in America, to crush out the fairest hopes of polit- 
ical freedom which the sun ever shone upon ; or even if 
it was an ecclesiastical hypocrite, with an athestic heart, 
believing in no God, and loving no man, who, for the 
sake of power and ambition, sought to make men trem- 
ble at the ugly phantom of a wrathful deity, and laid 
his unclean hands on the soul of man, and made that a 
source of terrible agony to mankind! When you are 
told that this man is plunged into hell for all time, is 
there a man who would not cry out against the hideous 
wrong, and scorn heaven offered by such a deity? No ! 
there is no murderer, no pirate, no violator of virgins, 
no New England kidnapper, no betrayer of his nation, 
no ecclesiastical hypocrite even, who would not reject 
it with scorn, and revolt against the injustice. But 
the ecclesiastical doctrine represents God as thus damn- 
ing not one man, but millions of millions of men, the 
great majority of mankind, nine hundred and ninety- 
nine out of every thousand, and those, too, often the 
best, certainly the wisest and most loving and pious 
men! Do you wonder then, that thoughtful men, 
moral men, affectional men, and religious men turn off 
with scorn from this conception of God ? I wonder not 
at all. The fact that the majority have not done so 
only shows how immensely powerful is this great re- 
ligious instinct, which God meant should be queen 
within us. 

Let me do no injustice. I admit the many excellent 
qualities ascribed to God in the popular theology ; but 
remember this, that as much as the noblest words of the 
New Testament add to the conception of God in the 
worst parts of the Old Testament, just so much also do 
the savage notions from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, 
Numbers, and Deuteronomy, from the baser Psalms, 



138 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



and the Prophets, take away from the Father who is 
in heaven, the spirit who is to be worshipped in spirit 
and in truth ! In this " alligation alternate " one 
chapter of the Old Testament can adulterate and spoil 
all the blessed oracles of the New. Jesus is set off 
against Joshua; the whole of the Fourth Gospel, the 
Sermon on the Mount, and many a blessed parable, is 
nullified by a scrap from some ancient Jew who thought 
God was a consuming fire ! 

The form of religion demanded of men, in accord- 
ance with the ecclesiastical conception of God, certainly 
has many good things, but it is not natural piety for its 
emotional part, the aboriginal love of God ; nor natural 
theology for its intellectual part, the natural idea of 
God; nor natural morality for its practical part, the 
normal use of every human faculty; but it is just the 
opposite of these; it has a sentiment against nature, 
thought against nature, practice against nature. In 
place of love to God, with trust and hope, and most joy- 
ous of all emotions possible to man, it puts fear of God, 
with doubt, and dread, and despair, the most miserable 
of all emotions ; and in place of love to men, to all men, 
according as they need and we are able, it puts love 
only for your own little household of faith, and hate 
for all who cannot accept your opinions ; for out of the 
ecclesiastical conception of God comes not only the 
superstition which darkens man's face, clouds his mind, 
obscures his conscience, and brutalizes his heart, but 
also the persecution which reddens his hand with a 
brother's blood. The same spirit is in Boston to-day 
that in the middle ages was in Italy and Spain. Why 
does not it burn men now, as once it did in Italy, Spain, 
and in Oxford? It only lacks the power; the wish and 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOD 139 



will are still the same. It lacks the axe and faggot, 
not the malignant will to smite and burn. Once it had 
the headsman at its command, who smote and silenced 
men ; now it can only pray, not kill. 

Such being the ecclesiastical conception of God, such 
the ecclesiastical religion, I do not wonder it has so 
small good influence on mankind. Men of science, not 
clerical, turn off from such a God, and such a form of 
religion. They are less wise and less happy ; their sci- 
ence is the more imperfect, because they do not know 
the Infinite God of the universe, the absolute religion. 
With reverence for a great mind, do I turn the grand 
studious pages of La Place and von Humboldt, but 
not without mourning the absence of that religious 
knowledge of God, and that intimate trust in him, 
which else would have planted their scientific garden 
with still grander beauty. I do not wonder that men 
of politics turn off from ecclesiastical religion, and are 
not warned from wickedness by its admonition, nor 
guided to justice and philanthropy by its counsels. 
Look at the politicians of America, England, France, 
all Christendom, and can you show me a single man of 
them in a high place who believes in the ecclesiastical 
conception of God, and in public dares appeal to the 
religious nature of man, and there expect to find justi- 
fication of a great thought or a noble plan? No! 
when such politicians evoke the religious spirit, it is 
only to make men believe that it is a religious duty to 
obey any tyrant who seeks to plunder a nation, to si- 
lence the press of France, to crush out the life from 
prostrate Italy and Spain, to send Americans kidnap- 
ping in Pennsylvania or New England. The great 
men of science have broke with the ecclesiastical notion 



140 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



of God ; men of great moral sense will have nothing to 
do with a deity so unjust; while the affectional and re- 
ligious men, whose " primal virtues shine aloft as 
stars," whose deeds are " charities that heal, and soothe, 
and bless " the weary sons of men, they turn off with 
disgust from the ecclesiastical God, whose chief quali- 
ties are self-esteem, vanity, and destructiveness. One 
of the most enlightened writers of the New Testament 
says, " God is love." " Yes," says the ecclesiastical 
theologian, " but he is also a consuming fire ; he gives 
all his love to the Christians who have faith in Christ, 
and turns all his wrath against the non-Christians who 
have no faith in Christ. He that belie veth and is bap- 
tized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be 
damned." 

If a man accepts this notion of God, he can never be 
certain of his own welfare hereafter; he may hope, he 
cannot be sure, for salvation does not depend on a 
faithful use of talents or opportunities; but on right 
belief and right ritual. And when neither the intuitive 
nor the reflective faculties afford any test, who knows 
if his belief is right? The Jews are to be rejected for 
their faith in Moses and the Prophets. The Fourth 
Gospel makes Jesus say that all before him " were 
thieves and robbers ; " — I think he never said it. Paul 
repudiated Peter, if not also James and John; he was 
a dissembler, and they only " seemed to be somewhat ; " 
while the author of the book of Revelation thrusts Paul 
out of heaven, consigning him to the synagogue of 
Satan. Now if Paul and Peter and James and John 
did not know what faith in Christ meant, and could not 
agree to live in the same church, and sit in the same 
heaven, can you and I be sure of admittance there? 

While the ecclesiastical conception of God is thus in- 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOD 141 



adequate to a thoughtful man's religion, we are yet 
told that we must never reform this notion ! There is 
a manifest progress in the conception of God in the 
Biblical books ; but in the Christian church we are told 
that there must be no further step ; we must stop with 
Joshua. "Fear hath torment," says that anonymous, 
deep-hearted religious writer of the New Testament, 
seventeen hundred years ago ; but " perfect love casts 
out fear." We are told we must not cast it out, but 
must have a notion of God, which we must fear! 
Shame on us ! Mankind has made a mistake. We 
took a false step at the beginning. The dream which 
a half-savage Jew had of God we take for God's affi- 
davit of his own character. We do not look on the 
world of matter and mind, to gather thence a natural 
idea of God, only at the statements of certain men who 
wrote seventeen hundred or three thousand years ago, 
men who did well enough for their time, not ours. 

All round us lie the evidences against the ecclesiasti- 
cal conception of God, within us are they yet more dis- 
tinct. The great mistake of the Christian church is its 
conception of God. Once it was the best the nations 
could either form or accept. To-day it is not worth 
while to try to receive it. It is inadequate for science, 
either the philosophy of matter or man, explaining 
neither the condition, the history, nor yet the origin 
of one or the other. It is unfit for religion; for piety, 
its sentimental part; theology, its intellectual part; 
morality, its practical part. I cannot love an imper- 
fect God; I cannot serve an imperfect God with per- 
fect morality. 

There will be no great and sufficient revival of reli- 
gion till this conception be corrected. Atheism is no 
relief, indifference cannot afford any comfort, and be- 



142 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



lief makes the matter worse. The churches complain 
of the atheism of science; their false notion of God 
made it atheistic. You and I mourn at the wickedness 
of men in power ; is there any thing in the ecclesiastical 
religion to scare a tyrant or a traitor ? In high Ameri- 
can office mean men live low and wicked lives, abusing 
the people's trust, and then at last, when the instincts 
of lust, of passion, and of ambition fail them, they 
whine out a few penitent words to a priest, on their 
death beds, with their last breath making investment 
for their future reputation on earth, and also in the 
Christian church ! For this mouthful of wind do they 
pass for better Christians than a whole life of eighty 
years of philanthropy gave Franklin the reputation 
for. Thus selfish and deceitful men are counted for 
saints by the Christian clergy, while the magnificent 
integrity of Franklin and Washington never gave them 
a high place in any Christian church ! You weep at 
the poverty of life in the American church — thirty 
thousand ministers with right of visitation and search 
on all mankind, and no more to show for it! A re- 
vival of religion going on over the whole land — and a 
revival of the slave trade at the same time, and neither 
hindering the other! You mourn at the poverty of 
life in the churches of America, but the church of 
Christendom is no better — nay, I think the church in 
the free states of America is its better part ; the Chris- 
tian church abroad strikes hands with every tyrant, it 
treads down mankind, nor will it be ever checked, while 
it has such a false conception of God. 

Under us is the earth, every particle of it immanent 
with God; over us are the heavens, where every star 
sparkles with deity ; within us are the heavens and the 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOD 143 



earth of human consciousness, a grander revelation of 
deity in jet higher form. These are all of them a two- 
fold testimony against the ecclesiastical conception 
of God. Not one of them has a whisper of testimony 
in favor of atheism; all are crowded with evidence of 
the Infinite God, — first good, first perfect, and first 
fair, Father and Mother to you and me, to all that 
were, that are, shall be, leading us to life everlasting. 



3 



NATURAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL IDEA OF 

GOD 

Perfect love casteth out fear. — 1 John iv, 18. 

The religious element is so strong that it always will 
act both in its instinctive and its reflective form, for 
though here and there an eccentric man neglect or treat 
it with scorn, no race of men ever does so; nay, no 
nation, no little tribe, no considerable company of men. 
There are a thousand devotees who give up all to the 
religious faculty where there is not a single atheist who 
sacrifices that to something besides. Like the two 
other great primal instincts — the hunger for bread, 
which keeps the individual alive, and the hunger for 
posterity, which perpetuates mankind — this hunger 
for God is not to be put down. Here and there an in- 
dividual man neglects the one or the other, the instinct 
of food, of kind, of religion ; but the human race nor 
does, nor can. In mankind instinctive nature is 
stronger than capricious will. Whimsy alters the cut 
of Ahab's beard, or the shape of Jezebel's ringlets ; 
but the beard itself grows on Ahab's cheek and chin, 
will he or nill he; and Jezebel's head is herbaged all 
over with curls, growing while she sleeps. 

Soon as man outgrows the wild state of infancy, 
where he first appeared, in his primitive sense of de- 
pendence he has always felt his need of God, as in his 
instinctive perception he has always felt the being of 
God reflected therein, and formed some notion of God, 
better or worse. Go where you will, you find that men 
know God. The notions they form of him vary from 

144 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL GOD 145 



land to land, from age to age. They are the test of 
the people's civilization; how rude with the savage! 
how comprehensive with the enlightened, thoughtful, 
religious man ! But no nation is without them, or with- 
out a sense of obligation towards God or the practice 
of some form of service of him. 

The notion men form of God, and the corresponding 
service they pay, are both proportionate to* the people's 
civilization. The Indian Massasoit's conception of 
God, two hundred and fifty years ago, fitted him as well 
as ours fits us. Let us never forget this, nor think that 
we are proportionately more favored than our fathers 
were. Little baby Jimmy in Pennsylvania, some sev- 
enty years ago, was as much pleased with a penny 
trumpet, which worried his aunts and uncles, as Presi- 
dent Buchanan now is with the presidency of the 
United States and power to scare all Democrats into 
obedience. To us our fathers in 858 are barbarians, 
and we wonder how they stood it in the world, so poorly 
furnished and provisioned as they were. You will be 
barbarians to your sons and daughters in 2858, and 
they will wonder how you continued to live and have 
a good time of it. Yet you and I think life is decent 
and worth having. Milk and a cradle are as good for 
babies as meat and railroad engines for men. Small 
things suit little folks. So is it in religion as all else 
besides. I love to read the religious stories of rude 
nations — the Hebrews, the Philistines, the New Eng- 
land Indians. The Iroquois thought there were three 
spirits, the spirit of beans, of squashes, and of Indian 
corn, and these made an agricultural trinity, three be- 
nificent persons in one rude conception of a Mohawk 
God. Such a notion served their souls as well as the 

stone tomahawk and snow-shoe their hands and feet. 
I— 10 



146 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



Let us never forget that each age is as sufficient to it- 
self as any other age, the first as the last. The im- 
mense progress between the two is also the law of God, 
who has so furnished men that they shall find satisfac- 
tion for their wants, when they are babies of savage 
wildness and when they are grown men of civilization. 

From the beginning of human history there has been 
a continual progress of man's conception of God. It 
did not begin with Jacob, Isaac and Abraham; it will 
not end with you and me. Yesterday I mentioned some 
of the facts of this progress in the Bible, and pointed 
out the Jehovah of the Pentateuch eating veal with 
Abraham and Sarah, wrestling with Jacob, trying to 
kill Moses and not bringing it to pass ; I showed the 
odds between that conception of God and " Our Father 
who art in heaven," which filled up the consciousness of 
Jesus, and the God who is perfect love, which abode in 
the consciousness of another great man. This prog- 
ress is observable in all other people, in the literature 
of every nation. 

Religious progress cannot be wholly prevented; it 
may be hindered and kept back for a time. This is the 
mischief, men form an ecclesiastical organization, and 
take such a conception of God as satisfies them at the 
time, stereotype it, and declare all men shall believe 
that forever. They say, " This is a finalit} 7 ; there 
shall never be any other idea of God but this same, no 
progress hereafter." Then priests are made in the 
image of that deity, and they misshape whole commu- 
nities of men and women; and especially do they lay 
their plastic hand on the pliant matter of the child, and 
mismould him into deformed and unnatural shapes. 
What an absurdity! In 1780, in a little town of Con- 
necticut, Blacksmith Beecher, grim all over with soot, 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL GOD 147 



leather-aproned, his sleeves rolled above his elbows, 
with great, bare, hairy arms, was forging axes " dull 
as a hoe," and hoes " blunt as a beetle," yet the best 
that men had in Connecticut in those days. What if 
the Connecticut lumberers and farmers had come to- 
gether, and put it into their Saybrook Platform, that 
to the end of time all men should chop with Beecher's 
axes and dig with Beecher's hoes, and he who took 
an imperfection therefrom, his name should be taken 
from the lamb's book of life, and he who should add 
an improvement thereto, the seven last plagues should 
be added unto him! We all see the absurdity of such 
a thing. 

In 1830, in Boston, Minister Beecher, grim with 
Calvinism, surpliced from his shoulders to his feet, 
Geneva-banded, white-choked, a stalwart and valiant- 
minded son of the old blacksmith, was making a the- 
ology — notions of man, of God, and of the relation 
between them. Llis theological forge was in full blast 
in Hanover Street, then in Bowdoin Street, and he 
wrought stoutly thereat, he striking while his parish 
blew. But his opinions were no more a finality than 
his father's axes and hoes. 3 Let Blacksmith Beecher, 
grim with soot, and Minister Beecher, grim with theol- 
ogy, hammer out the best tools they can make, — axes, 
hoes, doctrines, sermons, and thank God if their work 
be of any service at that time ; but let neither the black- 
smith over his forge, his triphammer going, nor the 
minister over his pulpit, his Bible getting quoted, ever 
say to mankind, " Stop, gentlemen ! thus far and no 
farther! I am the end of human history, the last mile- 
stone on the Lord's highway of progress; stop here, 
use my weapon, and die with it in your hand, or your 
soul." Depend upon it mankind will not heed such 



148 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



men, they will pass them by ; whoso obstructs the path 
will be trodden down. Progress is the law of God. 

At an early age the Christian church accepted the 
ecclesiastical method of theology, namely, that every 
word between the lids of the Bible is given by God's 
miraculous and infallible inspiration, which contains 
the religious truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
the truth; and to get doctrines, men must make a de- 
coction of Bible, and only of Bible, for that is the 
unique herb out of which wholesome doctrines can be 
brewed. By that method it formed its conception of 
God. First, it fixed the ethical substance of God's 
character, the quality of God, with all the contradic- 
tions which you find in the Old Testament and the 
New. Next it fixed the arithmetical form of God's 
character, the quantitative distribution into three per- 
sons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, alike in their God- 
head, diverse in their function. Thus the capability to 
produce was in the Father ; the capacity of being pro- 
duced was in the Son ; the capacity of being proceeded 
from was in the Father and the Son, and the capability 
of proceeding was in the Holy Ghost. These are the 
differentia of the total Godhead. All that was fixed 
well-nigh fifteen hundred years ago. 

Since that time there have been three great move- 
ments within the Christian church. First, an attempt 
to centralize ecclesiastical power in the bishop of Rome ; 
that was the papal movement. Next was the attempt 
to explain the ecclesiastical doctrines by human reason, 
not to alter but expound and demonstrate by intellect 
what was accepted by faith; that was the scholastic 
movement. Then came at last the attempt to decen- 
tralize ecclesiastical power, and bring back from the 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL GOD 149 



Roman bishop to the common people what he had 
filched thence away; that was the Protestant move- 
ment. It split the Western world in twain, following 
the ethnological line of cleavage ; and since that there is 
a Roman church with a pope, and a Teutonic church 
with a people. But the papists and their opponents 
the laists, the scholastics and their enemies the dogma- 
tists, the Protestants and Catholics, all accepted the 
ecclesiastical method of theology, and so the ecclesias- 
tical notion of God. So within the borders of the 
Christian church, from the council at Nice in 325 to 
the council at North Woburn in 1857, there has been 
no revision of the conception of God, no improvement 
thereof. Protestant and Catholic, scholastic and dog- 
matist, laist and papist, agree in the ethical substances 
of God and in the arithmetical form. The Athana- 
sian creed set forth both ; in the fourth century it was 
appointed to be read in the churches. What is called 
the " Apostles' Creed " has little apostolic in it save 
its name ; yet it has been held orthodox for sixteen hun- 
dred and fifty years. All this time there has been no 
progress in the ecclesiastical conception of God, as set 
forth in the great sects of the Christian church; the 
same creed which answered for the third century suf- 
fices the church to-day. So long as the church holds 
to this ecclesiastical method of theology there can be 
no progress in the notion of God, for only Biblical 
plants may be put into the ecclesiastical caldron, and 
from them all only that conception can be distilled, 
though it may be flavored a little, diversely here and 
there, to suit the taste of special persons. 

But shall mankind stop? We cannot, if we would. 
We can stereotype a creed and hire men to read it, or 
scare, or coax them ; but a new truth from God shines 



150 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



straight down through creed and congregation, as that 
sunlight through the sky. In the last four hundred 
years what a mighty development has there been of 
human knowledge! In three hundred and sixty years 
the geographic world has doubled ; and what a develop- 
ment in astronomy, chemistry, botany, zoology; in 
mathematics, metaphysics, ethics, history ! How com- 
prehensive is science now! But there has been no de- 
velopment in the church's conception of God. The 
ecclesiastical God knows nothing of modern science — 
chemistry, geology, astronomy; even the geographic 
extent of the earth is foreign thereto ; neither Jehovah 
nor the ecclesiastical trinity ever heard of Australia, of 
the Friendly Islands, nor even of the continent of 
America. The ecclesiastical conception of God was 
formed before the discovery of America, before modern 
science was possible. The two are not to be reconciled. 
Which shall yield, the fact of science, or the fiction of 
theology? 

Outside of the orthodox Christian church there has 
been a great development of the conception of God, a 
revision of it more or less complete, certainly a great 
improvement. Thus the Unitarians rejected the Trini- 
tarian arithmetic, and said, " God is one nature in one 
person." The Universalists rejected the devilish ele- 
ment and said, " God is love all over, and is not hate 
anywhere." Once it seemed as if these two sects would 
make a revolution in the church's notion of God: but 
alas ! the Unitarians and Universalists both accept the 
ecclesiastical method of theology, and when they ap- 
peal to the miraculous and infallible Bible in support 
of their more reasonable and religious notion of God, 
they are always beaten in that court where Genesis is 
of as much value as the four Gospels, and murderous 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL GOD 151 



Joshua as great a theological authority as beneficent 
Jesus. So when they rely on the Bible, these sects are 
defeated, and draw back toward the old church with 
its belief of a ferocious deity ; this explains the condi- 
tion and character of these two valuable sects. Ac- 
cordingly, little good has come from their movement, 
once so hopeful. They would change measures and 
doctrines, but they would not alter the principle which 
controls the measure, nor the method whereby the doc- 
trines are made; and so these sects leaven only a little 
of the whole lump ; they do not create that great fer- 
mentation which is necessary to make the whole church 
take a new form. How much depends on the first prin- 
ciple, and the right method! 

Now, by the philosophic method, a man takes the 
facts of instinctive and reflective consciousness within 
him, and the facts of observation without, and thence 
forms his idea of God. He will be helped by the 
labors of such as have gone before him, and will re- 
fuse to be hindered by the errors of the greatest men. 
He will take the good things about God in this blessed 
Bible, because they are good, but not a single ill thing 
will he take because it is in the Bible. " God is love," 
says a writer in the New Testament, and our thought- 
ful man will accept that; but he will not feel obliged 
to accept that other statement, in the Old Testament, 
that " God is a consuming fire ; " or yet a kindred one 
in the New Testament, " These shall go away into ever- 
lasting punishment," " prepared for the devil and his 
angels." He will understand and believe that " He 
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God ; " but he 
will not assent to this, which the Christian Church 
teaches, " He that believeth and is baptized shall be 



152 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned." Be- 
cause he accepts the good and true of the Bible, he 
will not fall down and accept the false and ill ; for the 
ultimate standard of appeal will not be to a book writ 
with pens, as a minister interprets it, but to the facts 
of the universe, as the human mind interprets them. 

In philosophic men the reflective element prevails ; 
but I do not think they often have much intuitive power 
to perceive religious truths directly, by the primal 
human instinct ; nor do I think that they in the wisest 
way observe the innermost activities of the human soul. 
Poets like Shakespeare observe the play of human pas- 
sion and ambition better than metaphysicians like 
Berkeley and Hume, better than moralists like Butler 
and Paley. Commonly, I think, men and women of 
simple religious feeling furnish the facts which men of 
great thoughtful genius work up into philosophic 
theology. It is but rarely that any man has a genius 
for instinctive intuition, and also for philosophic gener- 
alization therefrom. Such a man, when he comes, fills 
the whole sky, from the nadir of special primitive re- 
ligious emotion up to the zenith of universal philo- 
sophic thought. You and I need not wait for such 
men, but thankfully take the truth, part by part, here 
a little and there a little, and accept the service of 
whoso can help, but taking no man for master — 
neither Calvin, nor Luther, nor Paul, nor John, nor 
Moses, nor Jesus — open our soul to the Infinite God, 
who is sure to come in without bell, book, or candle. 

When a man pursues this natural, philosophic 
method of theology, takes his facts from consciousness 
in his own world, and observation in the world of mat- 
ter, then he arrives at the philosophical idea of the 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL GOD 153 



God of Infinite Perfection. That God has all the qual- 
ities of complete and perfect being ; he has infinite 
power to do, infinite mind to know, infinite conscience 
to will the right, infinite affection to love, infinite holi- 
ness to be faithful to his affections, conscience, mind, 
power. He has being without limitation, absolute be- 
ing ; he is present in all space, at all times ; everywhere 
always, as much as sometimes anywhere. He fills all 
spirit, not less than all matter, yet is not limited by 
either, transcending both, being alike the materiality of 
matter, and the spirituality of spirit — that is, the sub- 
stantiality which is the ground of each, and which sur- 
passes and comprehends all. He is perfect cause and 
perfect providence, creating all things from a perfect 
motive, of a perfect material, for a perfect purpose, 
and as a perfect means, and to a perfect end. So, of 
all conceivable worlds he makes the best possible, of all 
conceivable degrees of welfare he provides the best in 
kind and the greatest in bulk, not only for all as a 
whole, but for each as an individual, for Jesus of Naz- 
areth who is faithful, for Judas Iscariot who turns 
traitor. There is no absolute evil in the world, either 
for the whole as all, nor for any one as part. 

That is the philosophic idea of God and of his rela- 
tion to the universe. To-day I state it short, for I have 
dwelt on it often before, and perhaps at some other 
time I shall take up the idea part by part, and speak of 
God as infinite power, then as infinite wisdom, then as 
infinite justice, as infinite love, infinite integrity, and 
so on. 

I think this idea of God as infinite perfection, per- 
fect power, wisdom, justice, love, holiness, is the grand- 
est thought which has ever come into mortal mind. It 
is the highest result of human civilization. Let no 



154 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



man claim it as his original thought ; it is the result of 
all mankind's religious experience. It lay latent in 
human nature once, a mere instinctive religious feeling. 
At length it becomes a bright particular thought in 
some great mind; and one da}^ will be the universal 
thought in all minds, and will displace all other notions 
of God — Hindoo, Egyptian, Hebrew, Classic, Chris- 
tian, Mahometan, just as the true theory of astron- 
omy, which actually explains the stars, displaced the 
Ptolemaic and all the other theories which were only 
approximate; just as the iron axe displaced the toma- 
hawk of stone. 

The evidence of this God is in man's consciousness 
and in the world of matter likewise outside of him. 
When the idea is presented to a thoughtful man, he at 
once says, " Yes, God is infinite perfection, power, wis- 
dom, justice, holiness, love," for human nature is too 
strong for his theologic prejudice. To prove there is 
such a being as Jehovah, who met Moses in a tavern 
between Midian and Egypt some thirty-three hundred 
years ago, and vainly tried to kill him, you must know 
Hebrew, and understand the antiquities of the Jews, 
know who wrote the book of Exodus, where he got his 
facts, what he meant by his words, what authority he 
rested on ; and when you have made that investigation 
the story will turn out to be wind, and none the better 
because Hebrew wind thirty-three hundred years old ; 
and after all that, you do not come to a fact of the 
universe, but only the fiction of a story-teller. But to 
prove the infinite perfection of God, you have the facts 
in your own nature; you are to sit down beside that 
primeval well and draw for yourself, and drinking 
thence, you shall thirst no longer for heathen Abana 
and Pharpar, the rivers of Gentile Damascus, nor for 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL GOD 155 



the Hebrew Jordan itself, for you shall find there is a 
well of living water within you, springing up to ever- 
lasting life; and as you drink, the scales of theologic 
leprosy fall off* from your eyes, and you stand there a 
clean man, full of the primitive, aboriginal vigor of 
humanity. As you look down into that depth of con- 
sciousness do you behold the eternal and immutable 
Idea of the infinitely perfect God forever mirrored 
there. This depends on no subjective peculiarities of 
the individual, but on the objective forces of the uni- 
verse. So, by its name to distinguish it from all other 
notions of God, I will call this the philosophical or 
natural idea of God; it seems to me a fact given in 
humanity itself, a self-evident truth of spiritual con- 
sciousness, something we discover in the universe, not 
something we invent and project thereon. So, while I 
name the other conceptions of God, I call this the idea 
of God — the philosophical idea, because derived by 
that method — the natural, because it corresponds to 
nature. To this men will also add conceptions of their 
own invention, which partake of the subjective pecu- 
liarity of John or Jane. 

I. This idea of God is adequate to the purposes of 
science. First of all things the philosopher wants an 
adequate cause for the facts of the universe, both the 
world of matter out of him, and the world of spirit in 
him. He is to explain facts by showing their mode of 
operation, and tracing them back to the cause — to 
the proximate cause first, to the ultimate cause at last. 
Now, as I showed before, the ecclesiastical conception 
of God furnishes no adequate cause for the facts of 
the universe. To the theologian it is cause sufficient 
for Noah's flood, for the ark, for the downfall of Jer- 



156 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



icho when the rams'-horns blew, for the standing still 
of the sun and moon while a Hebrew army slew their 
victims ; it explains such things as are not authenticated 
facts of history, but only anonymous fictions of my- 
thology. It is no adequate cause for the earth under our 
feet, for the heavens over our head, and, least of all, 
for this earth and heaven of human consciousness with- 
in us. The ecclesiastical God is sufficient cause for the 
Westminster Catechism, for baptism by sprinkling or 
plunging, for belief in eternal damnation, for admis- 
sion to Dr. Banbaby's Church; but it does not ex- 
plain a mother's love for her wicked, profligate girl; 
nor David's wailing over his worthless, handsome boy : 
"0 Absalom, my son! my son Absalom! would God 
that I had died for thee ! " — there is no fact in the 
ecclesiastical God's consciousness which corresponds to 
that. It is not cause for such a man as Socrates, or 
Franklin, nor such women as Miss Dix and Miss Night- 
ingale, and others not less noble, only less known. It 
explains Pharaoh's dream about fat and lean kine ; the 
story of Elisha's cursing the children who cried after 
him, " Go up, thou bald head, go," and of the two she- 
bears out of the woods who tore two and forty of those 
children to atoms in divine and bearish wrath; but it 
does not explain the life of such a man as Jesus of 
Nazareth, nor his lament, " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! " 
It does not account for that grandest of human tri- 
umphs, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
they do." To explain such characters the ecclesiastical 
conception of God is no more adequate cause than the 
penny-trumpet in a little boy's mouth is sufficient to 
explain the world of music which Beethoven dreamed 
into thought and then poured forth, gladdening the 
earth with such sweet melody. Read the book of Gene- 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL GOD 157 



sis, then read Newton's Principia, Humboldt's Kosmos, 
nay, any college manual of chemistry, and ask if the 
theologic God is cause adequate to the chemic composi- 
tion of a single flower ! Nay, read the stories in Gene- 
sis, or the sermons in Jonathan Edwards, and then in 
some starry night look up to the sky, and ask if that 
form of deity could have conceived the heavens? You 
see at once how insufficient it is. 

But the God of infinite perfection is adequate cause 
for all the facts in the universe. In the world of matter 
you find power resident on the spot, mind resident on 
the spot, a plan everywhere, things working to- 
gether in order. The world of matter is a " team of 
little atomies," thing yoked to thing, and skilfully are 
they drove afield by that Almighty One whose thought- 
ful road is everywhere. All is orderly, never a break in 
the line of continuity. In the fossil animals which per- 
ished a million of years ago you find proximate forma- 
tions which point to man ; nay, yet further back in the 
structure of the earth, the fashion of the solar system 
itself, do we find finger-posts which indicate the road to 
humanity, distinctly pointing unto man. There is law 
always, a constant mode of operation, never a miracle; 
no chemist, geologist, astronomer, can show proof of 
the " intervention of God ; " but the power, mind, law, 
constant mode of operation, these show the presence of 
God always, everywhere, ordering all things " by num- 
ber and measure and weight." The chemist analyzes 
matter into some sixty primitive substances, oxygen, 
hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, and the rest; but of all 
that " team of atomies " not a single brute creature 
ever thinks a thought ! it is in God that the mind re- 
sides, in him is the power and the plan. Mr. Whewell, 
a theological man indeed, but yet also, I think, cer- 



158 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



tainly one of the ablest and most dispassionate men of 
science in these days, writes a book against the Plural- 
ity of Worlds, and declares there is no conscious life 
analogous to man's in any planet, in sun, or moon, or 
star ; it is a dead world up there ; the sun is a dead sun, 
the moon is dead as brass, and there is no life in any 
star. Why so? It is not consistent with the ecclesias- 
tical notion of God; +he book of miraculous revelation 
never gives us a hint of a living thing in sun or moon 
or star; the plan of atonement applies only to the 
earth, it cannot reach an inch beyond the atmosphere, 
which extends about fifty-two miles from the surface! 
Mr. Whewell is right — a plurality of worlds is wholly 
inconsistent with the ecclesiastical God; there is no 
record that such a thought ever crossed the mind of 
Moses, Jesus, Paul or John, that it ever occurred to 
Hebrew Jehovah or Christian Trinity. But it is not 
inconsistent with the infinite god, and the philosopher 
who believes in him will not correct the facts of nature 
by the fictions of Genesis. To him, how different the 
world of matter appears, one grand act of creative 
power, which is everywhere active at all times. 

Then, when this idea is accepted no philosopher will 
be bid to look for a miracle, and called an " infidel " 
because he finds only law — law in the botanic growth 
of plants, law in the chemic composition of minerals, 
law in the mechanic structure of the earth, the sun, 
the solar system, the universe itself. Then there will 
be no atheistic Lagranges and La Places to deny all 
God, because they do not find the phantom which theo- 
logians bid them seek, and because their telescope bores 
through the spot where the New Jerusalem was said to 
be and finds but blank celestial space ! From the scheme 
of matter and of mind no brilliant Schelling, no cau- 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL GOD 159 



tious, erudite von Buch, no comprehensive, magnificent, 
generous, and thousand-minded von Humboldt shall 
ever omit the cause and providence of matter and of 
mind! 

Then, too, how different will the great complex 
world of human history appear ! Men will study it 
without hindrance, asking only for facts, for the law 
of the facts, and the human meaning of the law. They 
will find no miracle in man's religious history, but a 
continual development of a faculty common to all man- 
kind, a gradual progress in religious feeling, religious 
thought, religious act; no savage nation without con- 
sciousness of God, a sense of dependence, obligation, 
gratitude; aye, and trust in him, and something of 
love fojr him " even in savage bosoms " — all this 
proportionate to the people's civilization. The 
philosopher will find God in all human history, in 
the gradual elevation of mankind from the low state 
of the wild man, to higher and higher types of ex- 
cellence. 

Jehovah is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; 
he inspires only Jews, them not much. He hates Esau, 
and butchers the Canaanites. To the Gentiles he is 
not a loving God, but a hating devil. The ecclesiastical 
God is a redeemer only to the redeemed — a handful 
of men, rather mean men too, I fear, most of them. 
What is he to babies dying unbaptized? What to the 
wicked whom death cuts down in their unrepented 
naughtiness ? He is not God, but a " consuming fire ; " 
he is " the devil and his angels " to such ; not the God 
of love, but a " great and dreadful God," who laughs 
when their fear cometh, and crushes Sodom, and Go- 
morrah under his fiery hail ; and, all bloody with bat- 
tle, tramples populous Idumea under foot, as a Bac- 



160 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



chanalian treads the wine-press full of purple-blooded 
grapes ! 

With the philosophical idea, there is a God for all 
nations, for all men, inspiring liberal Greece and pru- 
dent Rome not less than pious Judea — a God for babies 
sprinkled, and for babies all unsmooched by priestly 
hands ; a God for J acob and Esau, Jew and Gentile ; a 
God to whom mankind is dear, Father and Mother to 
the human race! Then you can explain human his- 
tory : the diverse talents of Egyptian, Hindoo, Persian, 
Hebrew, Greek, Teuton, Celt, American, these are vari- 
ous gifts, which imply no partial love on the part of 
him who makes yon oak a summer green, yon pine a 
winter green. You find the Infinite God in human his- 
tory, as in the world of matter ; for as the plan of ma- 
terial combination, mineral, vegetable, animal, did not 
reside in any one of the sixty primitive substances, nor 
in the world of minerals, plants, animals, but in God*, 
who is the thoughtful substance to these unthinking 
forms — so the plan of human history is not in Abra- 
ham, Isaac, Jacob; it is not in the whole world of men, 
but in the Infinite God, who is the providence that 
shapes our ends to some grand purpose which we know 
not of. Thus the true idea of God is adequate to the 
purposes of science both of matter and man. 

II. This idea of God is also adequate to the purposes 
of religion. For that I want not merely a cause suffi- 
cient to my intellect, but much more. I want a God I 
can trust and have absolute confidence in, so that I am 
sure of him. Now the savage may confide in a God of 
blood, a partial God, who loves Jacob and hates Esau ; 
an inconstant and irregular God, who works by fits and 
starts, who is absent now for a long time, and then 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL GOD 161 



comes in with miraculous pomp, signs, and wonders. 
A malignant man may be content for a moment with 
his vengeful deity, who hates the wicked and will tor- 
ment them forever; but soon as a man is considerably 
enlightened in his mind, conscience, heart and soul, 
soon as he comprehends the power that is everywhere 
always, active and acting for good, then that savage 
deity is not enough for him. He wants not only in- 
finite ability, — power of force to do, power of mind to 
plan, and will to execute, but also power of conscience 
to will right, and the infinite power of affection to love 
all men and all things, using this energy of will, mind, 
force, for the welfare of each man — nay, of every 
mote that peoples this little leaf. That quality is not 
in the ecclesiastical God; here it is in the true God of 
earth and heaven and human consciousness. He is per- 
fect creating cause, making all things of the best pos- 
sible material, from the best possible motives, for the 
best possible purpose, and as the best possible means to 
achieve that purpose. He is perfect conserving provi- 
dence, who is as perfectly, completely and essentially 
present in this little rosebud which I hold in my hand, 
as he was when, as the Biblical poet has it, " the morn- 
ing stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
shouted for joy," at the creation of the earth, just 
springing into new-born stellar life. He administers 
all things by the perfect method, with the best of 
means, and will secure the best of ends for you and me, 
for each man, saint and sinner, for the poor widow who 
supplicates and the unjust judge who fears not God, 
neither regards man. 

By the ecclesiastical notion there is absolute evil in 
God, a dark deep background, out of which comes evil 
in the nature of things ; and hence comes the total de- 
I— 11 



162 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



pravity of man, hence the wrath of God. enlivening 
forever the fire of hell, which no deluge of human tears 
and blood can ever quench. So the evil in the world is 
eternal, not reconciled, not atoned for : it cannot be re- 
moved, neither in this life nor that to come, because it 
is an essential part of God. Nine hundred and ninety- 
nine men out of a thousand are sinners, and their sin 
is eternal, not to be removed : so their agony has no 
end. Trace it back lomcallv to its ultimate cause, and 
it is all God's fault. So every sin not repented of that 
you and I commit, is not only perpetual wretchedness 
for us, but likewise an eternal blot on the character of 
the ecclesiastical God. Under the parlor windows of 
his little heaven, where the elect loll on their couches 
and look out, indolently touching their harps of gold, 
there lies the immeasurable sink of hell, where the 
devils, those unclean beasts of the infernal world, wal- 
low continually, rending the souls of men, while the 
reek of their agony ascends up forever and ever ! 

But by the true and philosophic or natural idea of 
God, all the evil of the world is something incident to 
man's development, and no more permanent than the 
stumbling of a child who learns to walk, or his scrawl- 
ing letters when he first essays to write. It will be out- 
grown, and not a particle of it or its consequences shall 
cleave permanent to mankind. This is true of the in- 
dividual wrongs which you and I commit : and likewise 
of such vast wickedness as war, political oppression, 
and the hypocrisy of priesthoods. These are blots in 
mankinds writing-book, which we make in learning to 
copy out God ; s eternal rule of right in fair round let- 
ters, so clear that he may read who runs. The very 
pain the error gives is remedial, not revengeful : it is 
medicine to cure and save and bless, not poison to kill 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL GOD 163 



and torture with eternal smart. Here then is a God 
you can trust — power, wisdom, will, justice also, and 
likewise love. What quality is there a man can ask 
for that is not in the Infinite, Perfect God? 

Then there will be a form of religion adapted to rep- 
resent such an idea of God. It will conform to Man's 
nature, his body and soul, doing justice to every part, 
for as God made man with such faculties as would best 
serve his own great end, so it is clear that it is man's 
duty to use these faculties in their natural way, for 
their normal purpose. God did not make man with 
something redundant to be cut off, or lacking some- 
thing to be sought elsewhere and tied on ; he gave us 
such faculties as are fit for our work. 

1. See the effect this idea has on piety. A natural 
religious instinct inclines us to love God. If we have 
an idea of him which suits that faculty, then the soul 
loves God as the eye loves light, the ear sound, as the 
mind loves truth, use and beauty, the conscience jus- 
tice, and the affections men and women. The hungry 
religious faculty seeks for itself bread, finds it, and is 
filled with strength and delight. If it find it not, then 
we are tortured by fear, that ugly raven which preys 
on the dissatisfied heart of man. Now the Infinite God 
is the object of entire and complete satisfaction to the 
soul. You want perfect power for your reverence, per- 
fect wisdom for your intellect, perfect justice for your 
conscience, perfect love for your affections, perfect in- 
tegrity for your soul: and here they all are in the in- 
finitely perfect God. So piety will be complete in all 
its parts, and perfect too in each. I cannot love a 
wicked man as a good man, nor a foolish and unjust 
man as one wise and just; no more can I love a foolish 



164 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



God, nor an unjust God, nor a hating God. In pro- 
portion as I am wise, just, humane, shall I hate such a 
God, and repudiate the shameful thought. But the 
perfect God — I cannot help loving him just in pro- 
portion to my excellence. He made me so. I put it to 
the consciousness of every one of you, is it not so? 
When God is thus presented as infinitely perfect, can 
you refrain from loving him with your intellect, your 
conscience, heart and soul? No more than the healthy 
eye can fail to en j oy the light ; no more than the hun- 
gry, healthy appetite can help rejoicing in its natural 
food, the maiden in her lover, or the bridegroom in his 
bride ! 

2. Not less does this idea of God affect morality, the 
other part of religion. I find certain ideal rules of con- 
duct writ on my body and in my spirit. By inward 
and outward experience gradually I learn these rules 
— the laws of God, enacted by him into my flesh and 
soul. I shall try to keep these laws ; I know they are 
his commandment. I shall turn every faculty to its 
special work. My general piety, the love of God, shall 
come out in my normal daily work, in temperance and 
chastity, the piety of the body ; in knowledge of the 
true, the useful, the beautiful, the piety of the intel- 
lect; in justice for all men, the piety of the conscience; 
in affection for all in their various relations to me, in 
love for my friend, kindred, wife and child, which is 
the piety of the heart ; yes, it will appear in continual 
trust, in absolute reliance on the Infinite God, which is 
the great total generic piety of the soul. 

Then religion will not be away off, one side of my 
life, separate from my daily duty as brother, sister, 
son, father, mother ; not apart from my work as black- 
smith, governor, shoemaker, minister, nurse, seamstress, 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL GOD 165 



baby-tender, cook, editor, judge, or whatever I may be ; 
but the soul of piety will make religion in all these 
things. It will not be an exception in my life, con- 
densed into a single moment of morning or of evening 
prayer; it will be the instance of my life, spread as 
daylight over all my work. 

One day this idea of God will shine in human con- 
sciousness, and all the rude conceptions which now pre- 
vail will vanish as Moloch, Baal, Zeus, Jupiter, Odin, 
and Thor have faded out from the religion of all live 
mankind. To-day nobody prays to nor swears by these 
names, whereunto millions of men once fell prostrate 
and poured out such sacrificial blood. One day the 
God of Infinite Perfection shall be felt and known by 
all mankind ! Then no bigot, ignorant as a beast, shall 
essay to rebuke thoughtful men where he knows noth- 
ing and they know much. No longer shall priests — 
ill-born to little talent, ill-bred to superstition, igno- 
rance and bad manners — thrust their anointed stupid- 
ity in between man and God ; no longer shall fanati- 
cism pinch the forehead of the people; no longer shall 
it mutilate the fair body of man, nor practise yet more 
odious emasculation on the soul. Religion shall not 
mildew and rot the fruit of manhood, nor blast the 
bloom of youth, nor nip the baby bud ; but the strong- 
est force in our nature shall warm and electrify the 
whole plant of humanity, helping the baby bud swell 
into youthful bloom, and ripen into manly fruit, 
golden and glorious amid the sheltering leaves of hu- 
man life. To youth, religion shall give a rosier flush 
of healthy joy; to maid and man shall it bring 
strength, more stalwart and a lovelier beauty, cheering 
them through their single or their married toilsome 



166 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



life; and it shall set its kingliest diadem, a crown of 
heavenly stars, on the experienced brow of age. 

To-day " all Christendom is Christian." Why ? It 
has the ecclesiastical method, the ecclesiastical concep- 
tion of God, a mode of salvation by another man's re- 
ligion, not our own. Let me do no injustice. It has 
the best form of religion the world has devised yet on 
any large scale, which has done great service; but in 
all Christendom ecclesiastical Christianity hinders no 
war, it breaks no tyrant's rod, it never liberates a slave, 
emancipates no woman, shuts up no drunkery, removes 
no cause of ignorance, poverty, or crime, cherishes the 
gallows ; it is no bar to the politician's ambition, all 
reckless of the natural rights of man; it never checks 
a pope or priest in his hypocrisy. Every monster is 
sure v to have this ecclesiastical form of religion on his 
side, and when Napoleon or President Buchanan wishes 
to do a special wicked deed, he bends his public knees 
and supplicates his ecclesiastic God, the name in which 
all evil begins. 

But the true idea of God, the religion which is to 
come of it, which is love of that God and keeping all 
his commandments, will work such a revolution in man's 
affairs as Luther, nor Moses, nor yet mightiest Jesus 
ever wrought. God everywhere, infinite wisdom, jus- 
tice, love, and integrity, religion in all life, over the 
anvil, in the pulpit, beside the cradle, on the throne — 
what a new world shall that make, when the great 
river of God runs in the channel he made for it, singing 
melodies as it runs, and sending the spray up from its 
bosom to fertilize whole continents, which shall break 
out into flowers, that ripen into fruit, the very leaves 
for the healing of the nations ! 



4 



THE SOUL'S NORMAL DELIGHT IN GOD 

" I will behold thy face in righteousness : I shall be satis- 
fied, when I awake, with thy likeness." — Ps. xvii, 15. 

If a man be sure of the infinite perfection of God, 
the natural object of desire for all his nobler faculties, 
what tranquillity and delight is there for him ; not spas- 
modic and violent, but equable and continuous ! Then 
the strongest of all the human powers finds what most 
of all it needs; and the highest, the greatest of all 
human delights peoples the consciousness with this 
holy family of love. I do not wonder that all men are 
not rich — it is not possible ; nor famous — that, too, 
is beyond the reach of all save one in a million, even if 
each were so foolish as to wish he had a great name al- 
ways rattling behind him, filling his ears with dust and 
silly noise. It is not to be supposed that all men will 
pre-eminently be wise, or witty ; nay, not even learned , 
It does not astonish me that no more try for such 
things, though feeling yet their charm. But I am 
amazed that any one should be content to trudge along 
through life without a good culture of the religious 
faculty. I should of all things hate to be poor in piety 
and mortality. Above all things I would know God 
and live in tranquil gladsomeness with him. 

When a little boy, I used to hear ministers preach 
that the natural man did not love God ; but I was sure 
the natural boy did. They said that religion was 
something man naturally turned off from and avoided, 
and only the Holy Ghost could catch and bring him 

167 



168 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



painful back. I confess I was filled with wonder, for 
to my young experience it seemed as natural for a man, 
at least a boy, to worship God, to love God, to trust in 
him, and feel a delight in him, as it was for my father's 
bees to get wax and honey from the yellow blossoms of 
the willow or the elm — the first flowers of the late 
northern Spring — or to revel in the lilacs which hung 
over the bee-house, or rejoice in the white clover of 
New England, that, beautif} T ing the fields all around, 
wooed those little bridegrooms to its fragrant and 
sweet breast. No theological education and gray- 
bearded experience with mankind makes me now won- 
der less when I hear the old calumny repeated for the 
thousandth time. 

Look all the world over, and see how man delights in 
God ! These roses do not unveil and disclose their fair 
bosoms to the sun more naturally than spontaneous 
man opens his soul to God and welcomes the great star, 
shedding infinite daylight therein. Men with fire sac- 
rificing their sons unto Moloch, or Jehovah, men 
crushed before the car of Juggernaut, men in convents, 
women emaciated to nuns, crowds of men in Philadel- 
phia, New York, Berlin, and London, thrilled with 
bristling horror at the terrible phantom which some 
bony Calvinist calls out of his dark imagination to 
scare them withal, these testify of the necessity man 
feels to turn his face towards God; and if he find not 
the true, then will he fasten on some cheating substi- 
tute. If there be no God that he can love, then he 
crouches down beneath the conception of some God of 
damnation, and is horrified with fear. The soul, like 
the mouth, goes ever, and must be fed, if not on what 
it would, then at least on the best it finds. 

Mankind takes great delight in its religious con- 



THE SOUL'S DELIGHT IN GOD 169 



sciousness. With what joy did Egypt build up its 
pyramids, and from a mountain Brahmanic Indians 
hew their rock-cut temples out ! The wondrous archi- 
tecture of the Ionian Greeks in many a marble town, 
the fantastic mosques of the Mahometans, the ara- 
besques of Moslem piety, the amazing churches of the 
mediaeval Christians — all these were built with solemn 
joy! Not without delight did laborious men express 
the nation's gloomy religious consciousness in these 
things. Phoenicians worshipping Melkarth, Siamese 
prostrate before their great idol of a silver Buddha, 
Nootka Sound Indians all a rainy day sitting on the 
eaves of their god-house and drumming with the naked 
feet, Catholics on Easter Sunday, kneeling by thou- 
sands before St. Peter's that the Pope may say " Peace 
be with you ! " Protestants crowding to a camp-meet- 
ing or a revival — all these are witnesses to this great 
religious instinct, stronger than all outward force, 
which moves them toward the divine. 

I think my own life has not been lacking in happi- 
ness of a high character. I have swam in clear sweet 
waters all my days ; and if sometimes they were a little 
cold, and the stream ran adverse and something rough, 
it was never too strong to be breasted and swam 
through. From the days of earliest boyhood, when I 
went " stumbling through the grass," " as merry as a 
May bee," up to the gray-bearded manhood of this 
time, there is none but has left me honey in the hive of 
memory, that I now feed on for present delight. When 
I recall the years of boyhood, youth, early manhood, I 
am filled with a sense of sweetness, and wonder that 
such little things can make a mortal so exceeding rich ! 
But I must confess that the chief est of all my delights 
is still the religious. This is the lowest down, the in- 



170 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



wardest of all; it is likewise highest up. What de- 
light have I in my consciousness of God, the certainty 
of his protection, of his infinite love ! There is an In- 
finite Father — nay, Infinite Mother is the dearer and 
more precious name — who takes a special care of me, 
and has made this world, with its vast forces, to serve 
and bless me, an Elias chariot on which I shall ride to 
heaven — nay, am riding that way all the time ! God 
loves me as my natural mother never did, nor could, 
nor can even now with the added beatitudes of well- 
nigh two score years in heaven. I stand on the top of 
the world — all the stars shine for me. But he loves 
just as well the little boy, black as my coat, born this 
hour in some wigwam of South Africa, and will take 
just as special care thereof, and has made the universe 
a chariot of fire to translate that little black Elias to 
heaven withal; he also stands on the top of the world 
and has a life-estate in the sun and moon and every 
star. Nay, God takes just as good care of the mouse 
which gnaws the grocer's cheese to-day, nor never for 
a moment neglects the little aphis now sucking this 
leaf ; nor the parasitic animalcule which feeds on the 
aphis, the atomy of an atomy. They also stand on the 
top of the world, this great celestial sphere whereof 
God is both centre and circumference. Consciousness 
of that God, the cause and providence of all the world, 
it fills me with such delight as all the world besides can 
never give ! I wonder any one who ever opened half an 
eye inwardly, could dream that religion is unnatural to 
man, that piety is not welcome to our innermost as are 
these roses welcome to the spring. For what I say of 
me is also true of you, if not of each, why, certainly, 
of most — 'tis true of man, if not of men. 

In great Italian towns, all winter long, you shall see 



THE SOUL'S DELIGHT IN GOD 171 



men and women, too old, perhaps, for work, yet not 
quite poor enough for professional beggary, wrinkled 
as Egyptian mummies; they crawl out of their hovels 
and creep through the cold darkness of the lanes they 
live in, and, screened from the wind under the wall of 
some great church, palace, or monastery, they nestle 
all day in the yellow sunshine of the sky, so happy in 
that light which gives them also necessary warmth do 
those venerable babies seem, blest by that great star 
which shines forever on them, though six and ninety 
million miles away ! In New England or Pennsyl- 
vania, when the spring thaws out the farm-house, and, 
speck by speck, the dry earth appears green with 
healthy grass, and the fresh smell of the ground, such 
as you find it at no other time, comes up a wholesome 
breath, some pale, little tall girl, toddling about the 
narrow kitchen all winter long, looking thin and 
peaked, comes out to revel in the sunshine and the new 
grass. The breath of the ground is the inspiration of 
health to her; the eye, dim and sunken just now, ere 
long glows like the morning star in that young heaven, 
and the pale cheek has the bloom of the ruddy clover 
in it too. By-and-bye, the mother, careful and trou- 
bled about many things, tells the neighbors at meeting 
on Sunday, " O, Jinnie's quite another girl now the 
spring's come from what she was in February and 
March. The winter went hard with her, poor thing; 
I and her father begun to think she'd melt away before 
the snow did ! I think she'll get along nicely now ! " 
What the sun is to the sickly girl whom winter pent up 
in the narrow house, and to the lazzaroni at Naples, 
whose poverty allows him no nearer fire and light, that 
is the religious consciousness to you and me ; yes, to 
all men in all lands, in every age save the rudest of all. 



172 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



I do not see how any one can live without it ; I think 
none ever does. As the body on the material world, so 
the soul must live on God, that universal motherly 
bosom to warm and feed mankind. All over the world 
do you find the sweet and holy flower of piety spring- 
ing out of the ground of humanity, common as grass 
on the earth, or stars above it. Early literature is full 
of religion. Man's first psalm is of God; so little 
babies first of all things say mamma, papa. Theology 
is the oldest of all science — this queen mother of many 
knowledges. Amid all the babble of shrewd, noisy 
tongues, this language of heaven, spoken in a still 
small voice, is yet understood of all mankind. Civilized 
people have their Bibles, — Chinese, Indian, Persian, 
Hebrew, Christian, Mahometan, writ with pens, but 
yet thought-inspired of God. The savage also has his 
Bible, far older, yet not writ with pens. Mr. Cartier, 
who went among the North American Indians in the 
sixteenth century, says : " A day seldom passes with an 
elderly Indian, or others who are esteemed wise and 
good, in which a blessing is not asked or thanks re- 
turned to the Giver of all life, sometimes audibly, but 
most generally in the devotional language of the 
heart." Another missionary amongst them says, when 
the Indian party broke up their winter encampment, 
they went to the spring which had furnished them 
water, and thanked the Great Spirit who had pre- 
served them in health and safety, and supplied their 
wants. " You then witness the silent but deeply im- 
pressive communion which the unsophisticated native of 
the forest holds with his Creator." 

" Every human heart is human, 
And even in savage bosoms 
There are longings, yearnings, strivings, 



THE SOUL'S DELIGHT IN GOD 173 



For the good they comprehend not; 
And the feeble hands and helpless, 
Groping blindly in the darkness, 
Touch God's right hand in that darkness, 
And are lifted up and strengthened." 

Do not think that God knows only such as " know 
Christ," or Moses. He is no respecter of persons. The 
footsteps of religion, you see them in the dew of the 
world's early morning; they are deeply set in the 
primeval rock of human history. How multitudinous 
are the conceptions of God, all meant to satisfy the 
soul which longs for him ! The appetite for food, the 
instinct for dress, how many experiments they make! 
Humanity could not dispense with one of them. 

" The lively Grecian in a land of hills, 

Rivers and fertile plains and sounding shores," 
" Could find commodious place for every God." 

" In despite 

Of the gross fictions chanted in the streets 

By wandering rhapsodists, and in contempt 

Of doubt and blind denial, hourly urged 

Amid the wrangling schools, a spirit hung, 

Beautiful vision, o'er thy towns and farms, 

Statues and temples and memorial tombs; 

And emanations were perceived; and acts 

Of immortality, in nature's course, 

Exemplified by mysteries that were felt 

As bonds on grave philosopher imposed 

And armed warrior; and in every grove 

A gay or pensive tenderness prevailed, 

When piety more awful had relaxed." 
" And doubtless sometimes a thought arose 

Of life continuous, being unimpaired: 

That hath been, is, and where it was and is, 

Then shall endure — existence unexposed 

To the blind walk of mortal accident; 

From diminution safe, and weakening age, 

While man grows old and dwindles and decays; 

And countless generations of mankind 

Depart, and leave no vestige where they trod." 



LL74 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



Trust me, none is wholly without God in the world. 
Even in the wickedest of men there must be yet some 
line of light lying along their horizon, where the great 
heavenly sun, unseen, unknown, refracts his rays in the 
dense air, and stooping down, touches with fire the 
edge of their little kingdom of earth; at least some 
little northern light of superstition, which is also a 
dawn, flickers in their cold, cloudy sky ; else in their 
Arctic winter, even piratical murderers or manstealing 
dogs would go mad at feeling such Egyptian darkness, 
and would die outright. 

But yet there are, certainly, great differences among 
men in respect to their internal consciousness of re- 
ligion. In our great towns there are millionaires ; also 
are there paupers, beggars there. What an odds be- 
tween these devotees of money! So are there likewise 
paupers of religious consciousness, clad with but a few 
rags of pious experience, rudely stitched with an oath 
or a momentary aspiration, pasted together here and 
there with religious fear — a covering all too scant — 
and through the loops and rents of this spiritual rai- 
ment the bitter winds of life blow in upon the smart- 
ing soul. There are also great capitalists of religion, 
millionaires of piety and morality, whose long life in- 
dustriously spent in holy feeling, holy thinking, holy 
work, has given them a great real and personal estate 
of religion, whence they have now a daily income of 
spiritual delight. This triumph of the soul you often 
find in men of no outward distinction, sometimes fur- 
nished with but little learning — the religious their 
only spiritual wealth. But the highest religious de- 
light is not found in these monsters of piety, only in 
well-proportioned characters, when all the faculties 
are fully grown and trained up well. For the religious 



THE SOUL'S DELIGHT IN GOD 175 



is a mixture likewise of all other joys, and, like manna, 
" hath the taste of all in it." 

It is not fair to expect much religious experience in 
the child. Reverence for the all-in-all, gratitude for 
his genial providence, the disposition to trust this Di- 
vine Mother, and to keep the laws of conscience, that 
is all we should commonly look for at an early age. 
The fair fruits of religion come only at a later day, not 
in April or May, but only in September and October. 
Nay, there are winter-fruits of religion, which are not 
fully ripe till the trees bloom again, and the grand- 
father of fourscore years, sees the little plants flower- 
ing under his shadow; not till then, perhaps, are the 
great rich winter pears of religion fully perfect in 
their luscious ripeness. 

Yet the religious disposition is a blessed thing, even 
in childhood. How it inclines the little boy or girl to 
veneration and gratitude — virtues, which in the child 
are what good breeding is in the full-grown gentleman, 
giving a certain air of noble birth and well-bred su- 
periority. There is a Jacob's ladder for our young 
pilgrim, whereon he goes up from his earthly mother, 
who manages the little room he sleeps in, to the dear 
Heavenly Mother, who never slumbers nor sleeps, who 
is never careful and troubled about any thing, but yet 
cares continually for the great housekeeping of all the 
world, giving likewise to her beloved even in their sleep. 
In the child it is only the faint twilight, the beginnings 
of religion which you take notice of, like the voice of 
the bluebird, and the Phoebe, coming early in March, 
but only as a prelude to that whole summer of joyous 
song, which, when the air is delicate, will ere long glad- 
den and beautify the procreant nest. 



176 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



Painful is it to see a child whose religious culture has 
been neglected ; the heavenly germ attempting growth, 
but checked by weeds, which no motherly hand plucks 
up or turns away. More painful to see it forced to 
unnatural hot-bed growth, to be succeeded by helpless 
imbecility at last. Worse still to find the young soul 
cursed with false doctrines, which film over the eye till 
it cannot see the Sun of Righteousness rising with such 
healing in his beams, and make life a great dark day, 
hideous with fear and devils, and amazed with the roar 
of greedy hell! Such ill-entreated souls often grow 
idiotic in their religious sense, or else, therein stark 
mad and penned up in churches and other asylums, 
mope and gibber in their hideous bereavement, thinking 
" man is totally depraved," and God a great ugly devil, 
an almighty cat, who worries his living prey, torment- 
ing them before their time, and will forever tear them 
to pieces in the never-ending agony of hell ! It is ter- 
rible to hear the sermons, hymns, and prayers, which 
these unfortunates wail out in their religious folly or 
delirium. To cause one of these little ones to offend 
in that way, it were better that a millstone were hanged 
about the father or the mother's neck, and they were 
drowned in the depths of the sea. I say it is but the 
beginning of religion that we find in the tender age; 
twilight or sunrise, seldom more. The time of piety 
is not yet. Blame not the little tree; in due season 
it will litter the ground with purple figs. 

In later years you see the flowers of religion, you 
taste the fruit of its gladdening consciousness of God. 
In early manhood there are temptations of instinctive 
passion, which clamors for its object, and cares but 
little with what its hungry maw is fed. In later man- 



THE SOUL'S DELIGHT IN GOD 177 



hood, there are temptations of ambition, a subtler and 
more deceitful peril. I know nothing but religion that 
is commonly able to defend us from either; this is 
strong enough for each, for both together. 

Young Esau is hungry ; the pottage is savory. De- 
sire from within leagues with occasion from without. 
" No other eye is on me," quoth he. His pulses throb ; 
the lightning, the earthquake, the fire of passion, pass 
with swift tumultuous roar along his consciousness. 
But the nice ear of conscience listens to the still, small 
voice of duty, " Remember now thy Creator in the 
days of thy youth." He turns him off from her snare, 
charm she never so wisely, and if he fail of the pottage, 
he is not poisoned with the wild-gourds stirred therein ; 
with chaste hand he keeps his birthright of integrity. 
" Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his ways? " asks 
young Esau, but from his religious soul the answer 
straightway comes : " By taking heed to the law of 
duty, clearly writ and plain to read." He drinks clean 
water out of his sv/eet spring, and thirsts no more for 
the tepid tanks of vice, dirty and defiling. His nat- 
ural passion is directed by its natural master, and what 
is so often the foe of youth becomes his ally and invig- 
orating friend. 

In a later day more dangerous lusts invade the 
maturer man. Jonas is alone in his place of business 
now. It is late ; all the clerks have gone home, the 
shutters are closed, the fire smoulders low in the grate. 
The gas is thriftily turned down; by the dim light I 
cannot see whether the counting-room opens into fac- 
tory, grocery, haberdashery, warehouse, or bank. 1 
but distinctly see the desk — symbolic furniture for 
all the five, with many more — and an anxious man 

heavy with long-continued doubt. It is the man of 
1—12 



178 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



business in his temptation — nay, his agony and 
bloody sweat. Not Jesus in the New Testament leg- 
end was more sorely tempted of another devil. 
" Shall I attempt this plan? " quoth he. What it is 
appears not — importing Coolies, or African slaves, 
cheating the government or the people — this only is 
clear, he intends some great wrong to other men. " I 
can do it — 'twill certainly succeed — no man shall 
find it out. Then wealth is mine — that is nobility in 
a democracy ; with it comes the power, the respecta- 
bility and the honor it bestows." They flit before 
him — a great city house wheels into line ; a great 
country house follows, flanked with wide lawns and 
costly gardens — a whole world of beauty. He sees 
such visionary entertainments, new flocks of wealthy 
friends, obsequious clergymen, communing at any 
table where success breaks the bread and fills the cup, 
no matter if but shewbread and wine of iniquity. He 
tastes the admiration of men who worship any coin, 
and care not if it bear the laureled head of liberty, 
a northern fair-faced maid, or only a southern vulture 
swooping down upon its human prey. He anticipates 
the wealthy marriage of his modest girls. He sees 
posts of ambition close at hand, and all so easy for 
mounting up to if he be but winged with gold. " All 
this will I give thee, yea, and much more," says the 
tempter, " for they are mine, and where I will I be- 
stow them. I, Mammon, dwell with honor ; glory is 
mine, and respectability; my fault is better than vir- 
tue. The love of riches is the beginning of wisdom. 
Money crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the 
streets, How long, ye honest ones, will ye love sim- 
plicity? Whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell 
safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. Did any 



THE SOUL'S DELIGHT IN GOD 179 



ever trust in wealth and was confounded? Look 
about you: how did Mr. Shortweight gain his mil- 
lions? Yet what honor he lived in! Colleges named 
him doctor of laws, and not banker. In funeral ser- 
mons ministers put him among the saints. Come thou 
and do likewise. Money answereth all things, and is 
imputed unto men for righteousness ! " 

" Shall I also climb that popular ladder? " asks tor- 
tured Jonas. But presently it seems as if his mother's 
form bent over him. It is the same sweet face which 
was once so often pressed to his, as she stilled his 
aching flesh and kissed his little griefs away. His 
ear tingles warm again, as if that mouth, long silent 
now, breathed into it her oft-repeated word, " Only 
the right is acceptable with God." " Get you behind 
me, devils all," cries he. They vanish into the cold 
ashes of his grate, while the fair angel that we name 
religion, disguised in his mother's saintly shape, comes 
back and ministers to him. He goes home a strong 
man; but dreams that night that he was shipwrecked, 
and in the wildest storm his mother came and trod 
the waters under her, and brought him safe to land. 
Then turns he, and dreams again that he was falling, 
falling, falling through the dark, never so long and 
far away, and that same strong-winged angel swept 
between him and the ground, and bore him off unhurt, 
repeating with its sweet motherly voice : 

" Only the Right is acceptable with God ! " 

He wakes for honest toil and manly duty, with its 
dear and tranquil j oys ; and all day long that holy 
Psalm keeps quiring in his heart: 

" Oney the Right is acceptable with God ! " 



180 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



How soothing is religion in sorrow ! It is her only 
boy : Rachel could not save him. The girls were 
thinned out one by one. Sickness made them only 
dearer. Death plucked them, flower after flower. 
When he shook the family bush, how sadly did those 
white roses cast their petals on the wind! The corner 
of the village grave-yard seems snowed all over with 
mementoes of what has been. The father, too, is gone 
now. In sleep her arms fold together, but only on 
emptiness, as love calls up the dear figure to cheat and 
avoid her grasp. Poor Rachel ! all alone now ! and 
dreams add their visionary woe to the live sorrows of 
the waking day. Now the last one lies there, straight- 
ened after death, a red rose put in his hand. It is the 
room he was born in. Her bridal chamber once is his 
funeral chamber now — the beginning of her hopes, 
the end of her disappointments — a porch only to so 
many graves. How fair he looks, the brown hair 
clustered round his brow. Since death, in the dead 
boy she sees the father's face come out more fair, just 
as he looked when she was eight and Robert ten, and 
they gathered chestnuts in the woods, he alone with 
her and she alone with him ; he bearing the little sack 
their mutual hands had filled, when neither knew nor 
di earned those little trodden paths would lead to mar- 
riage, and their mutual hand fill many a sack of joys 
and sorrows too. In the same face she sees her lover 
and her child — both dead now. That handsome bud 
will never be a flower. No maiden shall salute those 
cheeks with the first stealthy modest kiss of heavenly 
love. The real present and the ideal future meet there, 
and Rachel sits between, the point common to both; a 
wife without a husband, a mother with no child. Poor 
Rachel! Is there any consolation? She feels the In- 



THE SOUL'S DELIGHT IN GOD 181 



finite Father is with her, he loves her husband better 
than she loved him, when passion melted the twain to 
one; loves the child better than she loved her lost one, 
her only one — her boy. The Infinite Father is with 
her. In her early love she looked to him and was not 
ashamed. That day-star of piety gleamed white in 
the roseate flush of her maiden love ; through the throb- 
bing joy of her bridal she looked up to the Infinite 
One, Father of bridegroom and of bride. When one 
by one those little sprigs pushed out from the married 
boughs, Rachel remembered him who never forgets us in 
our heedlessness, thankful for the old life continued, the 
new life lent. Does she now forget the Rock whence 
our earthly houses be hewed out and builded up ? 

The neighbors look on the surface of her life — how 
disturbed it is, the great deep all broken up ! But 
underneath it all, below the troubled depth of her 
sorrow, there is a deeper deep whereto she goes down. 
It is all still there, and, face to face, she communes 
with him who will be with us in deep waters. In the 
ecstasy of grief she finds that settled joy of heart 
which transcends all other joys. She looks into another 
world and sees her white rosebuds, and the last, the 
red, open in the light of heaven and flower out to fairer 
maiden and manly beauty than earth knows of in tem- 
perate or in tropic lands! while amid those dear ones 
the mortal father, immortal now, who went before his 
boy, walks like a gardener among his plants, and 
makes ready also a place for her ! " Thy will, not 
mine be done ; it is well with the child. 5 ' She needs no 
other prayer. The comforter has come, that same 
comforter who was in the beginning and cheered the 
hearts of millions before the name of Jesus was ever 
spoke on land or sea. Poor Rachel, is it ? Then who, 



182 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



I ask, is rich? Henceforth she has a charmed life, 
her smiles fewer but serener and more heartfelt. The 
air is cool and delicate about her; the endemics of the 
ground can stir no fever in that tranquil blood. Her 
great sorrow has seemed a great religion, which fills 
her with stillness. A wife without a husband, a mother 
without a living child, is she alone, think you? The 
Infinite Father is with her, in her, and she also in him. 
Call not that lonely which is so densely populate with 
God. 

How the winds blow on the surface, at the human 
level; with what wrathful sweep tread those posters of 
the sea and land! Go a few furlongs up, and you 
have left the whirlwind behind you; you are above the 
thunder, and beneath your feet the harmless light- 
nings flash unheard away ; all the noises of Sebastopol 
and Waterloo roll by and leave no mark on the most 
delicate ear. Even the earthquake is not felt in that 
calm deep of the upper air ! On the sea, go down not 
many rods, 

" The water is calm and still below, 

For the winds and waves are noiseless there, 
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow 

In the motionless field of upper air. 
And life, in rare and beautiful forms, 

Is sporting amid those bowers of stone, 
And is safe when the wrathful spirit of storms 

Has made the top of the wave his own." 

How old and gray-headed Mr. Grandfather is. 
At Boston, in 1783, he heard the bells ring for peace, 
which meant also independence. His thoughtful 
mother, not without prayers, watched his cradle at the 
beginning of the storm of revolution. Now he is old, 
very old. He has been out on the sea of life and done 



THE SOUL'S DELIGHT IN GOD 183 



business in its great waters. Many a proud wave has 
gone over him. But he got through. Children and 
children's children are the crown of triumph for his 
old age. Yet he is more religious than old. He 
stoops a little now, and sometimes slumbers in his chair. 
The mists of the valley which all must tread lie spread 
out before him, white with the moonlight of old age. 
Of a pleasant day he sallies forth, staff in hand, this 
CEdipus, who has met the sphynx of time and solved 
the great riddle of life, and he wonders " where the 
old people are? " How young the world looks to his 
experienced eyes ! He lifts his hat to some venerable 
man whom he saw christened in the meeting-house so 
long ago that the ink has turned brown on the yellow 
paper in the parish book. There is a funeral to-day 
of a white-haired woman, old, very old. Mr. Grand- 
father remembers her as a chubby little rosy-cheeked 
maiden, with black hair, and eyes so full of fun, just 
getting into her teens when he was but half-way there. 
Now he reads on the silver plate, " Aged XCIV." 
" Ninty-f our ? " quoth he, "a great age. Yes, I 
knew she was about that ! A great age. Fourscore 
and fourteen ! Six more, and it is a hundred." He 
remembers the green-gages she used to give him out of 
her father's great garden ; now it is built all over with 
huge granite stores, four stories high, and the pear 
trees and plums which Mr. Blackstone brought over 
from England have followed their planter long since. 
He remembers her wedding — seventy-six years ago 
last July, boy of twelve that he was. On the plain 
table of those " good old times ' he set a china bowl 
of white lilies, which he swam for in Hammond's Pond 
that morning, to honor his pretty cousin's marriage 
with. It was the first time they ever had such flowers 



184 



MATTER AXD SPIRIT 



at a Puritan wedding; but the minister liked it, so did 
cousin Lucy, but the new cousin thought only of her 
who made him so happy. " Xow she is clad for 
another change," quoth Mr. Grandfather, as he lays 
his last gift of blossoms on her coffin ; " always a little 
before me, never long; born seven years first, wed 
twelve years before me. We shall meet again before 
long. This is the last of earth for you; soon it will be 
for me. Well, I am content. 4 Shock of corn fully 
ripe ' — let the dear Father come and take of his plant- 
ing, at the great harvest home. To die is also gain." 

That night Mr. Grandfather tarries late in his sit- 
ting-room, when the rest are gone to bed. He slept a 
little after supper in his great arm chair, and is quite 
wakeful now. The old clock stands there; it tells the 
hours of human time ; nay, with delicate hand it marks 
even the seconds, just as life itself will always do. It 
reports likewise the days of the month and of the week, 
the shape of the moon : on the top of all is a ship at 
sea, rising and falling by wheel work, as if driven by 
the wind and tossed. Mr. Grandfather looks into his 
wood fire, and then all the long voyage of his past life 
comes pictured to him from his cradle to cousin Lucy's 
funeral. There are sad things to look on, which bring 
back a tear; he did not know it till it fell hot on his 
hand and made him start. There are joyous things 
also, which set Ins heart throbbing as when he was a 
bridegroom. Nay, there are wrong things which he 
did, repented of, and outgrew so long ago that they 
seem merely historical, like the sins of Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob; yet he remembers the lesson they taught. 
His boyish loves return — father and mother, children 
— nay, children's children. The wife of his heart, 
reverently buried years ago, comes back in bridal gar- 



THE SOUL'S DELIGHT IN GOD 185 



merits, then sits at the new cradle. Then another 
funeral rushes on his sight : " Lover and friend thou 
puttest far from me, and mine acquaintance into dark- 
ness," quoth he. " Nay, nay, not into darkness ; say 
rather into marvellous light! My time is not far off. 
How long, 0 Lord? How soon? Speak, Lord, for 
thy servant heareth." The old clock strikes twelve; 
the first day of another month comes into its place, 
and the new moon lifts its silver rim to tell below what 
heavenly life goes on above. " Soon shall I behold thy 
face in righteousness, and I shall be satisfied, when I 
awake, with thy likeness." 

I wonder any man can be content to live without 
the joyous consciousness of God; without this how any 
one can hear the griefs of time, I know not, nor cannot 
even dream. I would be certain that my little ven- 
ture is insured at the provident office of the Infinite 
God ; then shall I fear no shipwreck, but steer my per- 
sonal craft as best I may, certain of a harbor; and 
though it be at the bottom of the sea, I am safe landed 
in heaven. If I have well done my part, and where or 
when it may, I am sure the voyage will turn out for- 
tunate. 

O young men and young women ; men and women no 
longer young! It is not enough to be brave and 
thoughtful ; not enough to be moral also, and friendly 
each to each. You have a faculty which makes 
another world for you, the world of God. There is a 
joy which is not in wisdom, with all its science and its 
art of beauty and of use ; nor yet in morality, with its 
grand works of justice; nay, nor yet even in the sweet 
felicity of loving men and being loved in turn by them ; 
there is a life within the veil of the temple; it is the 



186 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



life with God, the innermost delight of human con- 
sciousness. Animated by that your wisdom shall be 
greater, more true your science, and more fair your 
art; your morality more firm and sure, your love to 
men more joyous and abiding, your whole character 
made useful, and beautiful exceedingly. 



IV 



THE DELIGHTS OF PIETY 

We are all connected with the world of matter, with 
the world of man, and with the world of God. In 
each of these spheres we have duties to do, rights to en- 
joy, which are consequent on the duties done. Our ex- 
istence first, and next our welfare, depends on doing 
the duties and enjoying the rights. Thereof we may 
do much, and enjoy much, or do little and enjoy no 
more. The quantity of our threefold happiness will 
depend on the amount of duties done, and of the rights 
enjoyed; but the quality of the happiness is also 
largely within our control; and we may derive our 
habitual delight from any one of these three sources — 
the material, the human, and the divine; or we may 
draw from all of these. We may content ourselves 
with the lowest quality of human delights, or we may 
reach up and get the highest and dearest quality 
thereof. 

Religion, in its wide sense, includes a man's re- 
lation to all three — to the world of matter, the world 
of man, and the world of God; it regulates a man's 
duties and rights, and consequent enjoyments, in all 
these three spheres of human consciousness — for re- 
ligion, in the large sense of that word, is the service 
of God with every limb of the body, with every faculty 
of the spirit, with every power we possess over matter 
or over man. 

But there is a purely subjective and internal part of 
religion, which is the heart of the whole of it, and 
187: 



188 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



whence its streams of life are sent forth! I mean 
piety. At first, piety includes directly only man's 
relation to the world of God, and controls and regulates 
the duties thereof, the rights therein, and the enjoy- 
ment therefrom,. But the roots of all other human 
relations, of all the rest of religion, strike down into 
this, and are not only steadied and supported, but 
they are nourished thereby. So all of religion, in its 
concretest form, comes ultimately out of this internal 
element which I call piety. 

By piety, I mean the normal action of the strictly 
religious faculty — the soul — considered as purely 
internal and subjective. It is our consciousness of God, 
our feeling of the world of God, and of all which be- 
longs thereto'. 

This piety is a feeling which, at first, seems to be 
simple, and not capable of being analyzed and decom- 
posed into other elements. But when you look at the 
matter a moment, you see it must be attended by the 
idea of God, and, as a condition of complete and per- 
fect piety, that idea must be the true idea — of God 
considered as infinite power, infinite wisdom, infinite 
justice, infinite holiness, and infinite love — for if you 
think, as many do, that God is not perfect, but is an 
ugly devil, it is plain that your feeling towards God, 
and your internal experience of God, must be exactly 
the opposite of what it will be if you consider him as 
infinitely perfect in power, wisdom, justice, affection, 
and holiness. In the state of complete and perfect 
piety, the spirit of man embraces into one unity of con- 
sciousness several elements, namely, first, an idea of 
God, a conception of him as infinite ; next, the feeling 
of perfect love for God, of perfect trust in him, and of 
tranquillity and rest with God; and, as a third thing, 



THE DELIGHTS OF PIETY 189 



the complete will to serve God by a way that corre- 
sponds to his nature, and to your nature likewise. 
Then, as a consequent result of these three things, 
there comes this — a supreme delight and rejoicing in 
God! 

It seems to me that these things make up a com- 
plete and perfect piety, normal and total. So it in- 
cludes a great thought — the idea of infinite God ; a 
great feeling — absolute love and trust in God ; and a 
great will — the resolution to serve him by the means 
which he has provided. These things are separated by 
reflection, and may be analytically examined; for pur- 
poses of philosophy and understanding, it is neces- 
sary to do this ; but for purposes of pure piety and re- 
ligion it is not necessary ; but we conceive of this as 
one simple thing not decomposable. This composite 
consciousness we call piety, and define it commonly 
by its chief and largest element which enters there- 
into, the love of God — for the feeling of God implies 
the idea of him as lovely, and leads unavoidably to the 
resolution to serve him by the means that he has pro- 
vided. 

Now, this piety is distinguished from three ab- 
normal forms of action of the religious faculty. 

It is distinguished, first, from superstition ; that is, 
the action of man's religious faculty combined with 
the false idea of God, namely, that he is not lovely and 
beautiful, but fearful and ugly. Accordingly the 
superstitious man thinks that God must be feared first 
of all ; and the internal worship of God is accordingly, 
with that man, fear, and nothing but fear. Then he 
thinks that outwardly God must be served by some 
mode of action that is deformed and ugly, and violates 
the native instincts of man ; that he must be served by 



190 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



mutilation, in old times, of the body, and in our times, 
of the spirit — now of the intellect, then of the con- 
science, then of the affections, or of the religious 
faculty itself. This is a very common idea of God 
and a very common idea of religion. God is thought 
to be ugly, and religion of course is ugly I Supersti- 
tion is fear before God, and when I speak of piety and 
its delights, I do not speak of superstition and any 
delight connected with that. 

Then, next, piety is distinguished from fanaticism. 
That is the action of the religious faculty attended by 
the idea that God is not only fearful and ugly, but 
that he is malignant also, and hates certain men. Ac- 
cordingly, the notion follows that God is to be served 
by cruelty to other men, by depriving them of rights 
which we value ourselves and do not wish to be deprived 
of. Fanaticism is hate before God, as superstition is 
fear before him. Fanaticism is a far greater evil than 
superstition, but in our day it is far less common. Ex- 
amples of fanaticism you find in the Spanish Catholics, 
who built the Inquisition, to persecute alike Catholic 
and Protestant, Mahometan and Jew; in the Protes- 
tants, who drove the fathers of New England and 
Pennsylvania from England and Holland to this the 
American wilderness ; examples of it do you find in 
the Puritan fathers themselves, who persecuted Quak- 
ers and Baptists, and put them to death. Nay, Quak- 
ers themselves, though sinning less than other Chris- 
tians, have yet sometimes been guilty of this offence. 

This form of piety is, thirdly, distinguished from 
mysticism. Mysticism is the action of the religious 
element, attended by the idea that man is nothing, and 
that God designs to crush him down, not into non-re- 



THE DELIGHTS OF PIETY 191 



sistance, but into mere passivity ; that the religious ac- 
tion is all God asks for, and that is to be purely in- 
ternal. So, according to the mystic, God is to be 
served not with all the faculties he has given, but only 
with this religious faculty, acting to produce emotions 
of reverence, trust, love, and the rest. Mysticism is 
sloth before God, as superstition is fear, and fanaticism 
is hate before God. It exists still in some of the 
churches, which cultivate only emotions of reverence, 
of trust, of love, and the like, but never let the love 
of God come out of the heart in the shape of the love 
of man. 

In superstition and fanaticism there is not a great 
idea, but a mean and false one; not a great sentiment 
of love to God, but a mean one of fear before him, 
and of hate towards men. But both of these do excite 
a great will, and accordingly superstitious men, and 
still more fanatical men, have always been distinguished 
for an immensity of will. In mysticism there may be 
a great idea and a great sentiment; there cannot be a 
great will. Complete and perfect piety unites all 
three, — the great thought, of the infinity of God ; the 
great feeling, of absolute love for him; and the great 
will, the resolution to serve him. 

I have thought it necessary at the outset to make 
this distinction between true piety and superstition, 
fanaticism and mysticism, for two reasons. First, the 
religious faculties in action are as liable to mistake an 
error as the hand or the foot, or any faculty that we 
possess; and we should therefore guard against mis- 
takes which have already been made, and into which 
ourselves are liable to fall. Then, secondly, I make 
this distinction and dwell up©n it because each of these 



192 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



three things is often set up as piety itself, and a man 
is told he can have no real piety in one church without 
superstition; in another, without fanaticism; and in a 
third, without mysticism. 

Now real piety is the safeguard of all other forms 
of happiness; it is the greatest of human joys. Our 
delight in the world of God far transcends all our de- 
light in the world of matter or in the world of man. If 
I am sure of God, sure of his infinite power, wisdom, 
justice, love, and holiness, then I am sure of everything 
else. I know that he has planned all things wisely, and 
will finally bring out all things well. Then I have a 
foundation on which I can build other things, and 
build securely. Then the universe — the world of mat- 
ter and the world of man — looks permanent ; I can 
rely on it. But without this certainty of God, I am not 
sure of anything; uncertainty hedges me in on every 
side. Now I doubt, then I fear, next I despair; for 
if all things depend on chance, as the atheist says — 
the blind action of blind forces — then there is no se- 
curity that anything is planned wisely or will turn out 
well ; and if they depend on an imperfect God, change- 
able, wilful, capricious, as the popular theology 
teaches, then there is the same lack of certainty, and I 
am not sure that God planned wisely or provides well. 
If they depend on an ugly and malignant God, as so 
many persons still teach, and some believe, — why, 
there is no hope ; that is fear — yes, despair ! In my 
nature there is a great demand for happiness, for im- 
mortality, for heaven. Logically, according to the 
light of nature, that demand, which comes of my con- 
stitution, implies the promise to pa}^ ; but if I am not 
sure of God, then I have only the promise to pay in 



THE DELIGHTS OF PIETY 193 



my nature, but there is no endorser on the note; there 
is no security lodged as collateral for payment, and I 
cannot trust the promisor. This misfortune is a very 
deep one, and it is felt also in all the popular churches 
that are about us. 

Thus my consciousness of God colours all the other 
facts of consciousness; my world of matter and my 
world of man take their complexion from my world of 
God. This is not theory alone, it is plain fact; you 
see examples of it everywhere. My consciousness of 
God comes into every relation that I have in life — to 
my business, to my pleasure, to my affection. Go into 
rigid Calvinistic churches; look at the faces of men, 
listen to their prayers, read their hymns, see what 
passages are selected from the Bible; then go with 
these men to their homes, and see how their children 
are brought up in fear, in trembling, and with dread 
of God, — counting religion as something unnatural, — 
and see how a mistake in the idea of God comes out and 
colors all the man's life. Then, to go to the opposite 
extreme, take the atheistic party which has risen up in 
our times, read their books, and see them declare that 
the idea of immortality is the greatest curse left for 
mankind, — not the common idea, but any idea of im- 
mortality, — hear them proclaim that the great func- 
tion of the philosopher is to re-establish the flesh in its 
domineering over the spirit of man, and you see how 
their absence of the idea of God colors their conscious- 
ness and penetrates into every relation. 

But if I know the infinite God, then I know that he 
is perfect cause and perfect providence, and that he 
makes and administers the world of matter from per- 
fect motives, of perfect material, for a perfect pur- 
pose, and as a perfect means thereto, and that the 
1—13 



194 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



perfect motive is love, the desire to bless everything 
that he makes ; then I am sure that the end is foreseen 
and provided for, that all the action of the universe, 
whether right or wrong, of the great universe as a 
whole, and of you and me, the little atoms which com- 
pose it, of each nation, community, family, and indi- 
vidual — I am sure that all this has been foreseen and 
provided for and so administered by the Infinite God 
that there shall be no absolute evil befalling the great- 
est genius or the humblest idiot; that no mote which 
peoples the sun's beams, that no mortal man, whether 
he be Judas the betrayer or Jesus the crucified, shall 
fail of never-ending bliss at last. Discipline there is, 
and must be, but only as means to the noblest and most 
joyous end. This I say I am sure of, for it follows 
logically from the very idea of the infinite perfect 
God. Nay, the religious instinct anticipates induction, 
and declares this with the spontaneous womanly logic 
of human nature itself. 

Now to any man who thinks, this is a matter of the 
very utmost importance ; to one who does not think, it is 
of no consequence at all. But if a man thinks, earn- 
est and deep, this conclusion is the most vital. When 
I am satisfied on this point, then I can enjoy the world 
of matter and the world of man, and I can apply the 
human means which are in my power to the human end 
which I wish to bring to pass. I have then no doubt 
of the final result, no fear of that; I am concerned 
about to-day and to-morrow, about my doing my duty 
and my brother doing his ; I am not at all concerned 
about eternity, and about God doing God's duty. 

I confess I wonder that every man who lives does 
not have this confidence and enjoy it; it seems so nat- 
ural, and is so instinctive also, and it squares so com- 



THE DELIGHTS OF PIETY 195 



pletely with the very highest science which man at- 
tains to; and then as you think about it, why, the infi- 
nite perfection of God springs into your eye at once, — 
so that I wonder that any man who thinks at all does 
not come to this conclusion, that God is infinitely per- 
fect, perfect cause and perfect providence, and made 
all and superintends all from a perfect motive, for a 
perfect purpose, and as a perfect means, and will ulti- 
mately bless everything that he has created. And yet, 
natural as this is, instinctively as we get at it, philo- 
sophical as it certainly is, there is no sect of Christians 
or un-Christians which has laid this down as its great 
corner-stone. There is not, as I have said before, a 
single sect of men in this whole globe of land which 
declares consistently the infinite perfection of God; 
even the Unitarians, in their " creed " recently promul- 
gated, though they say they believe the absolute per- 
fection of God, yet do not understand what it means, 
and do not venture to say that no man shall be ever- 
lastingly damned; they wish it may be so, they dare 
not think it surely is so. That of course implies that 
they wish what God is not good enough to wish; and 
of course implies that they are better in their wishes 
than God in his wishes, and accordingly, that they are 
nearer to infinite perfection than God himself. And 
yet the Unitarians have less of this than any other 
sect in Christendom. You go into any other church, — 
I will except in a large measure the Universalist church, 
— and you are frightened with the ghastly image of 
God which is gibbeted before you in horror. 

But, in addition to this sense of permanent security, 
the piety I speak of furnishes the highest, the deepest, 
and the most intimate delight which mortal man knows 



196 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



or can know here on the earth. I am very far from 
denying the value of other forms of delight, even of 
those which come wholly from the world of matter. 
Every sense has its function, and that function is at- 
tended with pleasure, with joy. All these natural and 
normal delights ought to be enjoyed by every man; it 
is a sullenness toward God not to rejoice and thus ap- 
preciate his beautiful world when we can. St. Bernard 
walked all day, six or seven hundred years ago, by the 
shores of the Lake of Geneva, with one of the most 
glorious prospects in the whole world before him — ■ 
mountain, lake, river, clouds, gardens, everything to 
bless the eye — and that monk never saw a thing all 
day long. He was thinking about the Trinity, and 
when he reached home some one spoke to him of the 
beauty he must have seen ; and the austere, sour-hearted 
monk said he had seen nothing. He thought it was a 
merit, and his chroniclers record it in his praise. It al- 
ways seemed to me rather impious in the stout-hearted 
man, a proud fling at God, which Voltaire would have 
been ashamed of. Mr. Beecher, with more wholesome 
piety, says in his poetic way, " The sweet-brier is coun- 
try cousin to the rose." There is a touch of religious 
recognition in all his love of nature, which to me seems 
more truly pious than the proud flights and profound 
thoughts in the seven hundred and forty-four letters 
of St. Bernard, and all his sharp and acute, and rather 
glorious sermons too. To me it always seemed irrever~ 
ent in that great man that he boasted that he only eat 
his dinner, but never tasted it, as if his mouth were 
a mill and no more ; it was certainly a fling at the good 
God, though the saint meant it otherwise. That great 
soul which made an ox's crib at Bethlehem holy ground, 
and the central point of many a pilgrimage, never 



THE DELIGHTS OF PIETY 197 



flouted at God's world in that sort. He saw a lesson in 
the flight of the raven; in the savorless salt there was 
a sermon; there is a beatitude in the dry grass of the 
baking-kettle of a poor woman in the company going 
up to Jerusalem to hear him preach; and the great 
eyes which saw God so clearly dwelt with pleasure on 
the lilies of the valley, and said, " Suffer little children 
to come unto me and forbid them not." 

God made the world of matter exceeding beautiful, 
and meant it should be rejoiced in by these senses of 
ours : at these five doors what a world of loveliness 
comes in and brushes against the sides with its gar- 
ment, and leaves the sign of God's presence on our 
doorposts and lintels. Think you God made the world 
so fair, every flower a sister to a star, and did not 
mean men's eyes to see, and men's hearts to take a 
sacrament thereat? Our daily bread is a delight which 
begins in babyhood, and only ends when the Infinite 
Mother folds us to her arms and gives us the bread 
which does not perish in the using. The humblest 
senses have their pleasure. The fly feeding on a berry 
crushed by accident on a bush, lets one a good way 
into the mystery of God's providence. The sights in 
nature, the sounds thereof, — they are all means of de- 
light. I am sometimes astonished to see how full of 
happiness a single day may be made, and that at the 
very cheapest rate, by the sights which come to the eye, 
and the sounds to the ear, at no cost but opening and 
listening. These are sacraments by which man com- 
munes with God. It is surely churlish to turn away 
from the table which he spreads before every man. It 
is a painful sight and a sad thought to remember how 
many men there are in this Christian land of ours, and 
still more in others, who are debarred from this pleas- 



198 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



lire. We think it a sad thing, and it surely is, that 
every man should not have a Bible in his house, and 
power to read it; and great-hearted Christians make 
large sacrifices to put the words of Esaias, and Amos, 
and Paul, and Jesus into the hands of every man. But 
should we not also be ashamed that the greater, di- 
viner Scriptures of God are not in every Christian's 
understanding, before his eye, and in his conscious- 
ness ! That also is a reproach. 

Then come those higher delights from the use of the 
senses and the mind better cultivated; from the beauty 
of nature and art, and common life. I cannot now 
dwell at length on our delight in the world of men, only 
recall to your memory what every man experiences, — 
the joy of affection, of love in all its forms, connubial, 
parental, filial, related, friendly, and all that. It seems 
to me that ascetic preachers often undervalue this. 
And I remember to have heard a man of a good deal of 
power too, declare that a man's love for his garden, his 
house, his ox, his horse, his wife, and his children, was 
all nonsense and absurdity ; nay, " a sin " in the eyes 
of God, and just as he loved these things the more, he 
loved God the less; and if he loved him supremely, he 
would care for nothing but God! I do not value at a 
low rate the happiness which comes from the union of 
the world of matter with the world of man, from our 
industry, its process and its results. I wish every 
earnest man knew what satisfaction there is in putting 
your human nature upon material nature, and making 
it take your image — now a form of use, then a form 
of beauty. I do not think we make account enough of 
this, or set sufficient store by this source of delight. 
To put human nature upon material nature, in the 



THE DELIGHTS OF PIETY 199 

shape of a grand statue or a grand picture — every- 
body thinks that is a great delight; but so it is to put 
human nature upon material nature in the form of a 
shoe, or a shirt, or a carriage, or a house, or a stock- 
ing, or a loaf of bread, or a nail, a farm, a garden, or 
a steam engine, or anything you will ; there is the same 
triumph of mind over matter in the one case as in the 
other, and when we get a little wiser we shall see what 
a real joy is in this, and at one end of society there will 
be no idleness and shirking, and at the other no drudg- 
ery and being crushed by excess of toil. God made 
man to live with matter, and made them both so that 
there should be good neighbourhood between the two, 
and man should get delight from the contact. God 
made men so that they might live with each other, and 
get deeper, dearer, and truer delight from that in- 
timacy. Do not think, I say, that I undervalue either 
of these forms of well-being. Let a man have all that 
he can get of both, and communicate in both kinds 
through this sacrament, with thankfulness of heart. 
But I must say that I think the delight which comes 
from the world of God, the joys of piety as a normal 
consciousness and experience of God, a great way sur- 
pass all these other delights I have just named. Yes, 
compared with the others, this is what womanhood is 
compared with girlhood or babyhood. I say this from 
my own experience ; but it is not my experience alone, — 
every deep-hearted saint who rejoiced in the world of 
matter and the world of man, and then took fast hold 
on the world of God, tells us the same thing. What 
brave words have come to us from Jesus of Nazareth, 
from Paul of Tarsus, from Thomas a, Kempis, and 
William Law, and Isaac Watts, and that great stout- 
hearted man whose foot was so deep in the world of 



200 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



matter, whose hands went so largely into the world of 
men, and whose soul took hold so strongly on the world 
of God — Martin Luther : what brave words these have 
left us of their experience in the world of God. Nay, 
how full of the deepest and richest experience of this 
kind were the lives of the saints of the Quaker church ! 
What joy had Fox, and Nayler, and Penn, and Wool- 
man, and Scott, and all those pious souls — women and 
men, who learned to lie low in the hand of God, and re- 
joice in their consciousness of him and the visitations of 
the eternal love ! 

What exquisite delights they are which make up our 
experience and enjo} T ment of God! The aspect of 
beauty in every form is always a joy — in the shape 
and color of a blade of grass, a nut, a n} T 's wing, a 
pearl found in a mussel of a New Hampshire brook. 
What higher delight is there in the beauty of the hu- 
man form ! Beauty is made up of these four things — 
completeness as a whole, perfection of the parts, fitness 
of each part for its function, and correspondence with 
the faculties of man. These four things make up the 
statics and dynamics of beauty. Now, looked at with 
the intellectual and esthetic part of human conscious- 
ness, God is absolute beauty. He is the beauty of be- 
ing, self-existence; the beauty of power, almightiness ; 
of intellect, all-knowingness ; of conscience, all- right- 
eousness; of affection, all-lovingness ; of the soul, all- 
holiness; in a word, he is the absolute, the altogether 
beautiful. As men take delight in mere sensuous love- 
liness of beautiful things, a rose, a lily, a dewdrop, a 
sunset, a statue or a star, or man's or woman's hand- 
some face, all heedless of their use; so a contemplative 
man may take rapturous joy in the absolute beauty of 
God — infinitely attractive to every spiritual faculty of 



THE DELIGHTS OF PIETY 201 



man — having that fourfold loveliness, completeness 
as a whole, perfection of parts, fitness of function, and 
adaptation to our human nature. 

But this beauty of God is a source of delight to few 
men ; it cannot be relished without a great development 
of the religious faculty, and also a profound culture of 
the intellectual and esthetic faculties; and besides, is 
somewhat too abstruse and transcendental in its nature 
for the busy world of men, who want something they 
can grasp with a thicker and hotter hand. I mention 
it, and dwell upon it, because it lies so much out of the 
way of common preaching, and because also it is real 
and lies within the reach of every man who can culti- 
vate his understanding and his religious faculty. But 
I pass briefly over this, because to many men it seems 
as moonshine when compared with the clear daylight of 
other forms of religious joy. 

Then there is this feeling of security and trust in 
God. I feel God not as a King, power alone, but as a 
Father ; yea, as a Mother, and I know that God loves me 
with tenderest affection, that he loves every human soul 
with all of his infinite power, wisdom, justice, love, and 
holiness. Now it is a delight to be beloved by any 
one; the affection which a cat, or dog, or horse, or ox 
feels for a man is a delight to that man; to know that 
some human being holds you in esteem, in affection, 
watches for you and watches over you, and takes de- 
light in your well-being — why, what a joy that is! 
Everybody knows it. I speak not now of the active af- 
fection which loves back again, but of the passivity of 
spirit which only joys in being loved by other men. 
Yet in receiving such love from mortal man there is 
often this hindrance — the man often wishes it to be 
exclusive to him alone; for he thinks his friend has so 



202 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



little affection that he wants it all, and would break 
other men's pitchers which are let down to the finite, 
private well of his friend's affection ; so there is a strife 
between the herdsmen of Abraham and of Lot, a quarrel 
which troubles the well, and breaks the pitchers, and 
muddies the water itself. But as the affection of the 
Infinite God is boundless, not to be exhausted, as from 
the very nature of God he must have infinite love, so 
no man need be jealous of him and fearful we shall not 
get our share, because publicans and sinners enter into 
the joy of their Lord. When the elder brother comes 
near the house of the Infinite God, he hears the music 
and dancing, and is not wroth, but falls on his brother's 
neck and kisses him, and finds himself in the finding of 
the lost, and lives anew in the living of the dead. 

I know the delight of being loved, for I have sunned 
myself in the affection of father and mother, and 
brother and sister, and wife and relative; and if any- 
body knows the beauty and blessedness of friendship, 
I think that I do, for I have sounded its depths and 
tasted its joy. But the love that I have received from 
mortal men, from father and mother, wife, and relative, 
and friend — it is but little, nay, it is nothing, com- 
pared to the still and calm delight which I feel from 
consciousness of being loved by the Infinite God. My 
mortal friends love me, perhaps, through their weak- 
ness ; they are not good enough to love a better man; 
God loves me for his strength, for his infinity. They 
are exclusive, perhaps loving others the less from loving 
me the more; but God includes all, the heathen, the 
Hebrew, the Mahometan, the atheist, and the Chris- 
tian; nay, Cain, Iscariot, the kidnapper, are all folded 
in the arms of the Infinite Mother, who will not suffer 
absolute evil to come to the least or the worst of these, 



THE DELIGHTS OF PIETY 203 



but so tempers the mechanism of humanity that all shall 
come to the table of blessedness at last! Death itself 
is no limit. God's love is eternal also, providing retri- 
bution for all I do; but pain is medicine. What is not 
delight is discipline, the avenue to nobler joy. 

Feeling a consciousness of this divine love for me, 
knowing that it is joined with infinite power, wisdom, 
justice, and holiness, that it is perfect cause to plan 
and perfect providence to administer — why, all the 
sorrows and sufferings of life, how easily they are 
borne! I writhe in mortal agony, but my Father's 
arms are round me — the agony is still. I am not rec- 
ognized by the world, my little merit is not acknowl- 
edged, not appreciated, it is so small; but God recog- 
nizes and appreciates it, and smiles down on the little 
good I do, and it is not lost. Nobody feels for me 
or with me; but the great God sympathizes with me. 
I have his infinite power and his infinite love heeding 
me every moment. I am tormented by the loss of 
friends — father, mother, wife, child; my dearest of 
the nearest are gone; but the Infinite Mother folds me 
to her bosom, and her tenderness wipes the tears from 
my eyes ; I fall asleep in the Infinite arms, remembering 
that no harm has happened to those who are taken, and 
there is a place in store for the one that is left. I 
know that no evils are absolute and lasting; nay, be- 
fore the creation of the world, all the errors, the mis- 
takes, and the sins which you, or I, or the human race, 
would commit, were foreseen by the Infinite Father, 
were provided for long before they came to pass, and 
shall, all of them, be rounded off at last into a whole of 
infinite bliss, infinite love towards each child that he has 
created, towards Cain, towards Iscariot, the kidnapper, 
and the victims of a world of cruelty and wrong. 



204 THE DELIGHTS OF PIETY 



I can look on the world's suffering and sorrow, on 
the wars and slavery, the poverty, drunkenness, and 
crime, the dreadful want which pines in cities, the vice 
we pile up in jails to perish in malignant rot, the more 
vicious vice which builds those jails; I can look on all 
the sad heart-break of mankind, and I know it will be 
all overruled by the Creator in his machinery of the 
world so that infinite good shall come at last. Of all 
the world's suffering and transgression, none came by 
superhuman chance, and so is a world accident; none 
by superhuman malignity, and is a world curse. The 
history of man is the calculated consequence of the fac- 
ulties God put in man, known beforehand to the infinite 
cause, provided by the infinite providence, and made to 
serve his purpose of eternal love. 

Then there comes the rising up of all my spirit in one 
great act of gratitude, reverence, and trust, one great 
feeling of love to God, and this fills me with unbounded 
delight. Passive to receive God's love, I am active to 
return it with love again. I just now spoke of the de- 
light of being loved by mortal men ! and then of the 
intimate joy of conscious love received from God! But 
as our highest joy is of action, and not merely of re- 
ceiving, as it is more blessed to give affection than to 
receive even that, so the joy which a man feels from 
his conscious love of the Infinite God far surpasses 
even the delight which he has from being loved by the 
Father. 

My affection for my earthly friends is checked by 
the limitations of their character: thus far and no far- 
ther is the rule, 

" For the fondest, the fairest, the truest that met, 
Man still found the need to forgive and forget." 



THE DELIGHTS OF PIETY 205 



But as God is infinitely perfect, absolutely lovable, so 
there is no limit without to my power of loving him, 
and my affection grows with the love of God which it 
feeds upon, and becomes greater, wider, deeper, nicer in 
its refinement, and brings a greater and greater acces- 
sion of delight. 

Then I have in God the sense of security, of per- 
manent welfare which it brings ; this imparts a steadi- 
ness to the action of all the faculties ; it gives energy, 
vigor, quickness to the intellect, strengthens the will, 
sharpens the conscience, widens the heart, blesses with 
its own beatitude every faculty that I possess. My 
delight in God increases each special joy in the things 
of matter or in the persons of men; I love the world 
the more, because I know it is God's world, even as a 
dry leaf given by a lover is dearer than all pearls from 
whoso loves us not! I love my proper business bet- 
ter, by fire-side and street-side, in market and in shop, 
because I know that it is the way of serving God, 
bringing about his divine end by my human means. I 
love my brothers and sisters, my father and mother, 
wife and child, far more, because my heart is filled with 
reverence and love to God. 

In the sunshine of life, every human joy is made 
more joyous by this delight in God. When these fail, 
when health is gone, when my eye is dim, when my es- 
tate slips through my hands, and my good name be- 
comes a dishonor, when death takes the nearest and 
dearest of my friends, then my consciousness of God 
comes out, a great light in my darkness, and a very 
present help in my time of trouble. In wet weather in 
the spring, every hill abounds with water, the brooks 
run over in their affluence, and all the hill-sides and 
plains are green; but, when week after week there is 



206 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



no dew nor rain, and month after month the heavens 
impart no germinative moisture to the ground, the little 
streams dry up, the surface springs are choked with 
heat and dust, then we go to the well that is bored into 
the primeval rock, embosomed in the mountain, and 
drink cool sweet water that never fails. 

This delight is for you and me, and every one of us ; 
and when we have this pure abstract enjoyment, which 
comes of piety in our soul, then the love of God will 
run over into morality, into love of men in every form ! 
and, in addition to these dear delights of piety, we 
shall have the joys of philanthropy, of justice, of wis- 
dom, and of all human consciousness in its thousand 
forms ! 



V 



BEAUTY IN THE WORLD OF MATTER 

All things are double, and he hath made nothing imperfect. 
■ — Eccxesiasticus xlii, 24. 

Late at night of a Saturday the milliner's girl 
shuts up the close-pent shop, and, through such dark- 
ness as the city allows, walks to her home in the nar- 
row street. All day long, and all the week, she has been 
busy with bonnets and caps, crowns and fronts, capes 
and lace and ribbons; with gauze, muslin, tape, wire, 
bows, and artificial flowers; with fits and misfits, bear- 
ings and unbearings, fixings and unfixings, tryings on 
and takings off ; with looking in the glass at " nods, 
becks, and wreathed smiles," — till now the poor girl's 
head swims with the heat of the day and the bad air of 
the shop, and her heart aches with weary loneliness. 
Now, thankful for the coming Sunday, she sits down 
in her little back chamber, opens the blinds, and looks 
out at the western sky, taking a long breath. Over 
her head what a spectacle! In the western horizon 
there yet linger some streaks of day; a pale red hue, 
toned up with a little saffron-colored light, lies over 
Brighton and Cambridge and Watertown, — a reflec- 
tion it seems from the great sea of day which tosses 
there far below the horizon, where the people are yet 
at their work ; for with them it is still the hot, bustling 
Saturday afternoon, and the welcome night has not yet 
reached them, putting her children to bed with her 
cradle hymn, — 

207 



208 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



" Hush, my child, lie still and slumber ; 
Holy angels guard thy bed; 
Heavenly blessings without number 
Hover o'er thy infant head ! " 

One lamp of heavenly light pours its divine beauty 
into the room. What a handsome thing it is, that 
evening star! No wonder men used to worship it as a 
goddess, at once queen of beauty and of love, thinking 
while unkindly ice tipped the sphere and bounded the 
Arctic and Antarctic realm, that she ruled into one 
those two temperate zones of an ideal world, and even 
the tropic belt between the two. Well, God forgive 
the poor heathens! they might have worshipped some- 
thing meaner than that " bright particular star," full 
of such significance; many a Christian has gone fur- 
ther, and done worse, whom may God also pity and 
bless! If Kathie's eyes were bright enough, she could 
see that this interior star has now the shape of the new 
moon, and is getting fuller every night. But what a 
blessed influence both of beauty and of love it pours 
into that little hired chamber! Then all about the 
heavens there is such wealth of stars of all sizes, all 
colors, — steel-gray, sapphire, emerald, ruby, white, 
yellow, — each one " a beauty and a mystery ! 99 

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star" (quoth she), 
" How I wonder what you are, 

Up above the world so high, 

Like a diamond in the sky ! " 

What a sight it is ! yet God charges nothing for the 
spectacle; the eye is the only ticket of admission; com- 
monly it is also a season-ticket given for a lifetime, only 
now and then it is lost, and the darkened soul looks 
out no more, but only listens for those other stars. 



BEAUTY IN MATTER 209 



which also rise and set in the audible deep, for the ear 
likewise has its celestial hemisphere and kingdom of 
heaven. But those stars the poor maiden looks at be- 
long to nobody; the heavens are God's guest-chamber, 
he lets in all that will. 

Our maiden knows a few of the chief lights — great 
hot Sirius, the three in Orion's belt, the north star, the 
pointers, and some of those others " which outwatch 
the bear," and never set. 

Well, poor tired girl, here is one thing to be had 
without money. God's costliest stars to you come 
cheap as wishing! All night long this beauty broods 
over the sleeping town, — a hanging garden, not Bab} 7 - 
lonian, but heavenly, whereof the roses are eternal, and 
thornless also. How large and beautiful they seem as 
you stand in dismal lanes and your eyes do not fail of 
looking upwards, full of womanly reproach as you 
look at them from amid the riot and uproar and de- 
bauchery of wicked men. Yet they cost nothing — ■ 
everybody's stars. The dew of their influence comes 
upon her, noiseless and soft and imperceptible, and lulls 
her wearied limbs. 

"Oh sleep! it is a blessed thing 

Beloved from pole to pole! 
To Mother God the praise be given! 
She sent the blessed sleep from heaven 

Which slid into her soul." 

At one touch of this wonder-working hand the maiden's 
brain triumphs over her mere muscles, her mind over 
the tired flesh; the material sky is transfigured into 
the spiritual heaven, and the bud of beauty opens into 
the flower of love. Now she walks, dreamy, in the 
kingdom of God. What a world of tropic luxuriance 
springs up around her ! — fairer than artists paint, 
1—14 



210 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



her young " Imagination bodies forth the forms of 
things unseen," nor needs a poet's pen to give those 
" airy nothings a local habitation and a name." No 
garden of Eden did poet ever describe so fair, for God 
" giveth to his beloved even in their sleep " more than 
most wakeful artists can reconstruct when " the med- 
dling intellect misshapes the forms of things." What 
a kingdom of heaven she walks in; the poor tired 
maiden from the shop now become the new Eve in 
this paradise of dreams ! But forms of earth still 
tenant there. It is still the daily life, but now all 
glorified : sleep and love are the Moses and Elias who 
work this real and not miraculous transfiguration. 
The little close-pent shop is a cathedral now, vaster 
than St. Peter's, richer too than all Genoese marbles in 
its vari-colored decoration : the furniture and merchan- 
dise are transubstantiated to arches, columns, statues, 
pictures. Ribbons stretch into fair galleries from pil- 
lar to pillar, lighter and more graceful than Cologne 
or Strasburg can boast in their architectural romance, 
writ in poetic stone, and the poor tape of the shop is 
now a stairway climbing round a column of the transept 
and winding into the dome far out of sight, till the 
mind, outrunning that other disciple the eye, takes 
wings to follow its aerial romp, which ends only in the 
light of day streaming in at the top and coloring 
the walls, storied all over with the pictured glory of 
heavenly scenes. The counter has become the choir and 
chancel; the desk is the great high altar. The roar 
of the street — where market -wagons, drays, omni- 
buses, coaches, carts, gigs, mix in one continuous up- 
roar from morn till eve — is now subdued into music 
sweeter and sublimer too than the pope ever heard in his 
Sistine chapel, nay, though he were composed for by 



BEAUTY IN MATTER 



211 



Beethoven and Mozart, and sung to and aided by all 
the great masters of heroic song, from old Timotheus, 
who " raised a mortal to the skies," to St. Cecilia, who 
" drew an angel down." What manly and womanly 
voices sing forth the psalm of everlasting life, while the 
spheral melody of heaven is the organ-chant which 
they all follow! A visionary lover comes forth, — his 
form a manly fact, seen daily from the window of her 
shop, his love a maidenly dream of many a natural 
and waking hour. He comes from the high altar ; it is 
the desire of all nations, the savior himself, the sec- 
ond Adam, the king of glory. He leads her through 
this church of love, built of sleep and beauty, takes her 
within the vail to the holy of holies, where dwells the 
Eternal ; therein, that which is in part is done away, and 
the mortal maid and immortal lover are made one for 
ever and ever. 

Sleep on, O maiden ! and take thy rest till the morn- 
ing star usurp the evening's place; nay, till the sexton 
toll his bell for Sunday prayers! I will not wake thee 
forth from such a dream, but thank the dear God who 
watches over those who rise early and sit up late, who 
giveth to his beloved even in their sleep ! 

Late on the same Saturday night, Jeremiah Well- 
todo, senior partner of the firm of Welltodo & Co., a 
wealthy grocer, now waxing a little old, shuts up his 
ledger and puts it in the great iron safe of his count- 
ing-room. He is tired with the week's work, yet it is 
not quite done. The rest of the servants of the shop 
have long since retired to their several homes. He 
closes the street door — the shutters were let down long 
ago — and walks toward home. The street is mainly 
still, save the rumble of a belated omnibus creeping 



212 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



along, and a tired hackman takes off his last fare ; for 
it is late Saturday night, nay, it is almost Sunday 
morning now, — the two twilights come near each other 
at this season, — and the red which the young milliner 
saw has faded out before the deep, dark blue of mid- 
night; the clouds which held up the handsome colors 
for her to look at, have fallen now and are dropped on 
meadows newly mown. How they will jewel the grass 
there to-morrow morning ! 

Mr. Welltodo's work is not quite done, business pur- 
sues him still. " Sugars are rising," quoth he, " and 
my stock is getting light. Flour is falling, the new 
harvest is coming in pretty heavy, opens rich. What 
a great flour country the West is. Well, I'll think of 
that to-morrow. Dr. Banbaby won't interrupt me 
much, except with the hymns. I do like music. How 
it touches the heart! That will do for devotion. I 
wish the Dr. didn't make such theological prayers, fit 
only for the assembly of divines at Westminster who 
are dead and gone, thank God! I wish some of their 
works had followed them long ago. Well, in sermon 
time I can think of the flour and the sugar. Good 
night, Mr. Business, no more talk with you till to- 
morrow at eleven o'clock." 

" What a lucky dog Jacob is, that partner of mine ! 
— smart fellow too ! went up to Charlemont at four 
o'clock, on the Fitchburg railroad, — bad stock that, — 
to see his mother ; that won't be the first one he stops to 
see; somebody else waiting for him — not quite so old. 
Mother not first this time. Well, I suppose it is all 
right, I used to do just so. Did not forget poor dear 
old mother; only thought of somebody else then, just at 
that time thought of dear little Jeannie, so I did, 
couldn't help it. Mother said nothing about it, she 



BEAUTY IN MATTER 213 



knew, always will be so, always was; one generation 
goeth away, and another generation cometh, but love 
remaineth for ever. Well, sugar's rising, flour getting 
low — think of that to-morrow. How my business 
chases me!" 

But the wind from the country hills comes into town, 
its arms full of the scents of many a clover-field, where 
the haymaker with his scythe has just swept up those 
crumbs which fall from God's table, and stored them 
as oxen's bread for next winter; but the wind gleans 
after him, and in advance brings to town the breath 
of the new-mown hay. It fans his hot temples, shak- 
ing his hair, now getting gray a little prematurely, 
and to his experienced memory it tells all the story of 
summer, and how the farmer is getting on. " What a 
strange thing the wind is," said he, " seventy-five per 
cent, nitrogen, twenty-four per cent, oxygen, and one 
per cent, aqueous vapor flavored with carbonic acid ! 
What a strange horse to run so swift, long-backed it is 
too, carrying so many sounds and odors ! What a 
handsome thing the wind is — to the mind I mean. 
Look there, how it tosses the boughs of this elm tree, 
and makes the gas light flicker as it passes by ! See 
there, how gracefully these long, pendulous limbs sway 
to and fro in the night! How it patters in the leaves 
of that great elm tree up at the old place ! " 

He lifts his hat, half to enjoy the coolness, half also 
in reverence for the dear God whose wind it is which 
brings the country in to him, and he fares homeward. 
All the children are a-bed, and as Jane Welltodo, 
thriftiest of kind mothers, has taken the " last stitch in 
time," on the last garment of little Chubby Cheeks, 
whose blue eyes were all covered up with handsome sleep 
when she looked at him two hours ago, the good woman 



214 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



lifts her spectacles, and wonders why father does not 
come home. " Business ! business ! it makes me half a 
widow; it will kill the good man. His hair is gray 
now, at fifty-five ; it is not age, only business. 6 Care 
to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt.' Killing himself 
with business ! Rut he's a good soul, sends home all 
the young folks ; lets Mr. Haskell go off courting, ' to 
see his mother,' I think he calls it." 

Just then the pass-key rattled in the door, the bolt 
was shot into its place, and Mr. Welltodo ran into his 
parlor. " To-morrow," cries he, " let us go out to 
the old place. You and I will ride in the chaise, and 
take Bobbie. Edward can go in the carryall, and take 
Matilda Jane and the rest of the family. He will like 
to deliver his piece to the trees before he speaks it on 
commencement day. College wears on Edward, studies 
too hard. Let him run out to grass a little up at 
Gove's Corner, 'twill do him good. I want a little 
smell of the country, so you do. How red your eyes 
are ! 'Twill do us all good." 

So they agree, and both think of the mothers that 
bore them, and of their own early days in the little 
country town, poor days, and yet how rich. They re- 
member the little school-house and the mill, the meeting- 
house and the singing school they went to once, when 
music was not the most important business they at- 
tended to. Going separate, and coming home to- 
gether; first two, next one, and finally many, in this 
wonderful human arithmetic ! 

The next morning before the first bell rung, they 
were at the old place where his father lived once, and 
his brother now; her father lives yet the other side of 
the hill, near the meeting-house. They will go there 
in the afternoon. 



BEAUTY IN MATTER 215 



What green beauty there is all around! How 
handsome is the white clover which the city horse greed- 
ily fills his mouth withal, as Mr. Welltodo and brother 
'Zekiel lead the good-natured creature to the barn ! 
The grocer follows the example, and has a head of 
clover in his mouth also, — sweeter than the cloves he 
put there yesterday. How delicate the leaf is, how 
nicely framed together ! No city j eweller unites metals 
with such nice economy of material, or fits them with 
such accuracy of joint. What well-finished tracery on 
the leaf! Nay, the honey-bee who has been feeding 
thereon flies off in a graceful curve, and on wings of 
what beauty ! How handsome the old elm tree is ; how 
lovely the outline of its great round top ! " That tree 
would weigh forty tons," says Mr. Welltodo, " 89,600 
pounds; yet it seems to weigh nothing at all. There! 
that robin flies right through it as if it were but a 
green cloud. How attractive the color, such a repose 
for the eye! Dear little bits o'babie is never cradled 
so soft as my eye reposes on that mass of green. But 
how pleasantly the color of the ash-gray bark con- 
trasts with the grass beneath, the boughs above! 
Look there, how handsomely the great branches part off 
from the trunk, and then divide into smaller limbs, then 
into boughs, into twigs and spray! How the pendu- 
lous limbs hang down, and swing in the wind, trailing 
clouds of greenness close to the ground! Look at the 
leaves, how well made they are ! There is cabinet work 
for you! What joining! How well the colors 
match ! See where the fire-hangbird has built a nest in 
one of those pendulous twigs, — just as it used to be 
fifty years ago! Dr. Smith's squirrels will never reach 
that! What a pretty piece of civil or military en- 
gineering it was to put such a dainty nest in such a 



£16 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



well-fortified place! How curiously it is made too! 
Such a nice covering! But here is the father; the 
mother is in the nest, brooding the little ones — rather 
late though. Did not marry early, I suppose; could 
not get ready ! 

" To choose securely choose in May, 
The leaves in autumn fall away." 

This is good counsel to bird or man, I suppose. That 
is right, old fellow ! go and carry your wife her break- 
fast, — or dinner, I suppose it is. But what a blaze 
of beauty he is, newly kindled there in the boughs! a 
piece of a rainbow, or a bit of the morning, which 
got entangled in the tree and torn off. How he sings ! 
— Grisi does not touch that ; no, nor Swedish Jenny 
Lind, with all the Bobolinks of New England in her 
Swedish throat, as I used to think. Not up to that, 
not she! Then, too, the very caterpillar he has just 
caught and now let fall at my feet, — what a hand- 
some thing that is ! What eyes, what stripes of black 
on his sides, and spots of crimson on his back, what 
horns tipped with fire on his head! What a rich God 
it must be who can afford to dress a worm in such mag- 
nificence, — a Joseph's coat for a caterpillar ! But 
next summer he will have a yet fairer coat, as he comes 
out of his minority with his new freedom suit on, and 
will flutter by all the flowers, himself an animate flower 
with wings. Butterflies are only masculine flowers, 
which have fallen in love, and so fly wooing to their 
quiet feminine mates. Let him go! I am glad the 
Oriole did not dine on such a meal as that. What a 
glutton, to eat up a Solomon's Song of loveliness! 
which was not only a canticle but a prophecy likewise 
■ — of messianic beauty for next year. 



BEAUTY IN MATTER 



217 



" There is a hornets' nest, — a young hornets' nest. 
I used to be afraid of hornets ; now I will let you alone, 
Mr. Stingabee ! Look there ! city j oiners and masons 
don't build so well in Boston as this country carpenter, 
who is hod-carrier, architect, and mason, and puts up 
his summer-house of papier-mache under the great limb 
of the elm. There is a piece of conscientious work! 
done by the job too, — so he works Sundays, — but done 
faithfully. What an overseer the good God is ! But 
no, Mr. Hornet, your little striped head didn't plan that 
house ; not an artist, only a tool in another hand ! " 

In the mill-pond close at hand he sees the water lilies 
are all out. How handsomely they lie there, withdraw- 
ing the green coverlets lined with white, and turned up 
with pink, wherein they wrapped themselves up yester- 
day at noon! What a power of white and saffron 
color within their cups ! How they breathe their 
breath into his face, as if he and they were little child- 
ren ! and are they not of the same Father, who cradles 
the lily and the man with equal love? The arrowhead 
and the pickerel-weed blossom there, and tall flags grow 
out of the soft ground, with cardinals redder than 
Roman Lambruschini. The buttonball is in its glory, 
swarmed about with little insects, promoting the mar- 
riage of the flowers. The swamp honeysuckle has put 
on its white raiment also, as if to welcome the world, 
and stands there a candidate for all honors. How 
handsome is this vegetable tribe who live about the 
pond! Nay, under his feet is the little pale-blue for- 
get-me-not. Once he used of a Sunday to fold it up 
in a letter signed J know you never willy and send it to 
the dear little maiden, now mother of his tall boys and 
comely girls. She liked the letter all the more because 
it contained the handwriting of her lover and her God, 



218 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



— a two in one without mystery. She has the letter 
now, laid away somewhere, and her granddaughter 
years hence will come upon it and understand nothing. 
Like Eliot's Indian Bible, nobody can read it now. 
No; there must be a resurrection of the spirit to read 
what the spirit wrote, — - in Bible leaves, in flower leaves. 
There is the cymbidium he used to send on the same 
errand, saying, " God meant it for my Arethusa." 

Hard by is the kitchen garden; the pumpkin vine, 
disdaining narrow limits, has climbed over the wall, and 
puts forth its great yellow flowers. In one of them 
is a huge bee tumbling about; he does not know it is 
Sunday, does not hear the bell now tolling its last jow 
for meeting ; does not care what the selectmen are talk- 
ing of outside the meeting-house, while within the old 
ladies are fanning themselves, or eating green caraway 
seeds, or opening their smelling-bottles, in the great 
square pews, where on high seats are perched the little 
uncomfortable children, whose legs do not touch the 
floor; he cares nothing for all that, nor whether the 
minister finds a whole new Bible or an old half Bible; 
he is buzzing and humming and fussing about in the 
blossom, powdered all over with the flower dust; now 
he flies off to another, marrying the dioecious blossoms, 
the thoughtless priest of nature that he is, who does 
manifold work while seeking honey for his subterranean 
hive. Our grocer knows him well. " What a well- 
built creature that is," quoth he ; " how well-burnished 
is his coat of mail, how nicely it fits, how delicate are 
those strong wings of his! Sebastopol is not so well 
armed for offence and defence. What an apparatus 
for suction! the steam fire-engine rusting out in the city 
stables is not so well contrived for that, though it did 
cost the city ten thousand dollars and that famous visit 



BEAUTY IN MATTER 



219 



to Cincinnati. But why all this wealth of beauty ? Is 
not use enough, or is God so rich that he can dress up 
an humble bee in such fine clothes? so benevolent that 
he will not be content with doing less ? " 

On the other side, the pasture comes close down to 
the pond: some of the cows stand there in the water, 
protecting their limbs from the flies ; others lie ruminant 
in the shadow of an oak tree. Wild roses come close 
down to the lilies, and these distant relatives, but near 
neighbors and good friends, meet in the water, the 
one looking down and reflected, where the other lies low 
and looks up. Spiraeas and sweetbriers are about the 
wall, where also the raspberries are now getting ripe; 
andromedas shake their little white bells, all musical 
with loveliness; the elder-bush is also in blossom, its 
white flowers grateful to the eye, as to the manifold 
insects living and loving in its hospitable breast. How 
clean is the trunk of the basswood ; how large and hand- 
some its leaves; how full it is of flowers! to which the 
bees, 

" with musical delight, 
For their sweet gold repair." 

A little further off the chestnut trees, also in their late 
bloom, dot the woods with unexpected beauty, — look- 
ing afar off like white roses sprinkled in the grass. 
How well their great round tops contrast with the tall 
pines further up on the hill ! The grouping of plants 
is admirable as the several beauty of each. Nature 
never combines the inappropriate, nor makes a vulgar 
match. There are no misalliances in that wedlock. 
How lovely is the shadow of the oak, as it lies there 
half on land, half in the water! The swallow stoops 
on the wing, dips her bill, and then flies off to her popu- 



220 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



lous nest in the rafters of the barn; how curiously she 
clings there, braced by her stiff tail, and wakes up the 
little ones to fill their mouths ! and then comes such twit- 
tering as reminds the city horse of his own colthood in 
the far-off pastures of Vermont. 

"Ah me," says the grocer, " what a world of use 
here is! see the ground, how rich the clover is! time it 
was cut, too, — running into the ground every day. 
How the corn comes out! Earth full of moisture, air 
full of heat, country never looked finer! How the 
Indian corn, that Mississippi of grain, rolls out that 
long stream of green leaves; it will tassel this very 
week! What a fine water power the pond is! only ten 
foot fall, and yet it is stronger than all the king's oxen, 
turns 'Zekiel's mill just as it used to father's, sawing 
in winter and spring, and grinding all the year through ; 
now it does more yet, for he has put the water to 'pren- 
tice, and taught it many a trade. How big the trees 
are! that great pasture white oak, twenty feet in cir- 
cumference, — Captain McKay would give two hun- 
dred dollars for it, take it where it stands, here; it has 
only one leg to stand on, but so many knees! That 
hill-side where the cows are, what admirable pasture it 
is, early and late ! see the white clover — a little lime 
brought that out ! what a growth of timber further up ! 
What a useful world it is ! what a deal of engineering it 
took to put it together ! only to run such a world after 
it was set up must take an Infinite Providence. It is 
a continual creation, as I told Dr. Banbaby; but he 
could not understand it, for 4 it was not in the Bible,' no 
part of revelation ; 4 continued creation is a contradic- 
tion in the adjective;' — well, well, it is an agreement 
in the substantive, a fact of nature if not a word of 
theology. What a useful world! But what a power 



BEAUTY IN MATTER 221 



of beauty there is too! How handsome the clover is! 
— Miss Moolly Cow, you don't care anything about 
that; it is grass to you, to the bee it is honey; it is 
loveliness also to my eyes. The Indian corn — a Mis- 
sissippi of use is it? Why, it is the loveliest Amazon 
that ever ran in all this green world of grains ! That 
millpond grinds use for brother 'Zekiel all day long, 
makes him a rich man. But what beauty runs over the 
dam, year out, year in, and comes dripping down from 
those mosses, on the stones: how much more of it lies 
there in the pond to feed the lilies, handsome babies on 
that handsome breast, — and serve as looking-glasses 
for the clouds all day, the stars all night ! This makes 
all the neighbours rich, if they will only hold up their 
dish when it rains wealth of handsomeness. Beauty is 
all grist, — no toll taker out for grinding that. 
Mill-pond is useful and beautiful at the same time, a 
servant and a sister. How that little cat's paw of 
wind rumples its dress, and those 

* Little breezes dusk and shiver,' 

just as Matilda Jane read it to me in Tennyson last 
Sunday afternoon, when her mother was hearing Dr 
Banbaby preach on the 6 Fall of man.' What an eye 
that Tennyson has ! — he sees the fact, daguerrotypes 
it into Words. If I were a poet, I would sit right down 
before nature and paint her just as she is, that is 
the way Tennyson does. So did Shakespeare — did 
not put nature's hair into papers, liked the original curl, 
so did I, so does God. There, it is all gone now, just 
as still as before ! I used to fish here, — but I only 
caught the outline of the hills, and the shadows of the 
trees. How those great round clouds come and look 
down there, and see their own face ! What ! don't you 



m% MATTER AND SPIRIT 



like it, that you must change it so fast? Well, you 
keep your beauty, if you do change your shape. What 
sunny colors ! It is Sunday all the time to the clouds 
and the pond. How all the hills are reflected in it ! and 
see the linden tree, and the great oak, and the white- 
faced cow, the house, the wall and the sweetbriers on it ; 
and underneath all are clouds ! so the last is made first, 
and the first last. Mr. Church, who painted that Andes 
picture at the Athenaeum, could not come up to this, not 
he, no, if he had Titian to help him ! Look at the re- 
flection of that great oak tree! Worth two hundred 
dollars for use is it? Captain McKay shan't have it; 
no, not for a thousand dollars! No, no, dear old tree! 
Grandfather who was shot at Lexington used to tell 
grandmother, and she told everybody of it, that it was 
a large, full-grown tree, when his great-great-grand- 
father built the first log-house in town. Underneath 
that he first took his pack off his shoulders, and his hat 
from his head, and stood up straight, and offered his 
prayer of thanksgiving to God. 6 Ebenezer,' said he, 
6 hitherto hath the Lord helped us,' and he called his 
first son by that name — Ebenezer Welltodo. Here the 
old pilgrim buried Rachel, his first daughter, a tall girl, 
they say, but delicate. She died when she was only 
fifteen, — died the first year of their settlement, came 
over from England. But the garden rose could not 
stand the rough winters of those times, faded and died. 
The old pilgrim — he was only thirty-six or eight then, 
though — buried that rosebud under the great oak. 
When he was digging the grave, a woodpecker came 
and walked round on the trunk of the tree, and tapped 
it with his bill, and then stood close to his head and 
looked at him with great red eyes. He never had seen 
such a woodpecker before, nor any wild creature so 



BEAUTY IN MATTER 223 



tame, and called it a bird of paradise sent to tell him 
that his daughter was safe in the promised land. So 
he finished her grave, and lined it with green twigs 
which the oak-pruner had cut off from the tree, and cov- 
ered her young body with the same — they had no 
other coffin — and filled it up with earth, and planted a 
wild-rose bush there for headstone. So this Rachel, 
like the other, was buried under a tree, and this Jacob 
also had his oak of weeping. I don't know how it is, 
but there has been a woodpecker in some of the great 
dead limbs ever since. Dear old oak! if there be 
' tongues in trees,' what stories you could tell ! You 
are as fair to the memory as to the eye. You shall 
never go to the mill ; — too beautiful for use, you build 
what is worth more than ships, for there is a heart in 
you ! 

" Look there, where the old barn stood ! how the ivy 
and wild grape vine have come and covered up the rock, 
casting a handsome veil over what man left bare and 
ugly. So it is on all the roadsides betwixt here and 
town. One day the railroad embankments will be also 
green and lovely. First come weeds — a sort of rough 
great coat, then grass, then flowers also. So is it with 
all our destructiveness. Nature walks backward, and 
from her own shoulders casts the garment of material 
beauty on the human shame of Waterloo and Balaklava, 
and all the battlefields of earth. See how the rock is 
covered with vegetation, houseleek here, celandine there, 
and saxifrage — how early it comes out, close to the 
snow; while mosses and lichens grow everywhere! 
Beauty pastures even on the rocks — God feeding it 
out of the clouds; He holds forth a cup, and every lit- 
tle moss comes and drinks out of it and is filled with 
life. 



224 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



" What does it all mean ? Is God so liberal, that, 
after drawing use for the customers at his universe of 
a shop, he lets the tap run awhile merely for the beauty 
of the stream ? Use costs us hard work, but the beauty 
of nature costs nothing. He throws it in as I do the 
twine and paper with a pound of cheese. No ; for that 
I get pay for in another way. He gives it, just as I 
gave little Rosanna Murphy, the Irish girl with the 
drunken father who went to the house of correction for 
beating his family — thank God I don't sell rum — 
just as I gave Rosie an orange last Friday when she 
came to buy the saltfish. That is it, he gives it in. 
' Don't charge anything for that,' as I told her poor 
little Rosie, who had been crjang for her good-for-noth- 
ing father : 4 We don't ask anything for that. I give 
it to you that you may be a good girl and happy, and 
know there is somebody richer than you who takes an 
interest in you, to let you know somebody loves you.' 
How she dried her tears and did thank me ! 

" Well, it must be a good God who makes such a 
world as this, and when we only pay for the dry saltfish 
of use — often with tears in our eyes — pats us on the 
head, flings in this orange of beauty and makes no 
charge, 6 so that you may be a good girl and happy, 
and know that somebody takes an interest in you, that 
you have a friend in the world ! ' 

" £ Comes of nothing,' does it? 6 No plan in the 
world, no thought,' is there? 6 The fool hath said in 
his heart, there is no God,' — that is, because he is a 
fool. He must be a fool to think so, a natural born 
fool, a fool in four letters. Well, I pity him; so does 
God. Poor fool, he could not help thinking so. I do 
not believe in Dr. Banbaby's God, — a great, ugly devil, 
sending Elias and two bears — miraculous she-bears — 



BEAUTY IN MATTER 



225 



to kill, and 6 carry off to hell,' forty-two babies who 
laughed at his bald head. I don't believe in such a 
devilish God as that ! it is worse than the fool's no-God. 
But there is wisdom and power somewhere ! Think of 
all this, — sermon on the mount, sermon on the hill, 
sermon in the pond, in the oak tree — a dear good ser- 
mon that is, — sermon in the wild-rose and the lily ! 
Yes, that swallow twitters away a whole one Hundred 
and Nineteenth Psalm of praise to God. How all 
nature breaks forth into voice as soon as you listen ! I 
don't blame her, I would if I could. Sing away there, 
fire-hangbird ! buzz away there, humble bee in the 
pumpkin blossom ! there is an Infinite Goodness some- 
where ! You don't know it, but you grow out of it, all 
of you ! The world itself is but one little moss, drink- 
ing from the cup God holds in his hand. All me ! if the 
Rev. Banbaby would come out here and read God's 
fresh hand-writing, and not blear his eyes so continually 
over the black print of John Calvin and the Synod of 
Dort ; if he would study St. Nature only half as much 
as St. Revelation, he would never have preached that 
sermon on the 4 Damnation of the Unbaptized,' and de- 
clared that all such were lost, and especially infants, on 
whom God visits the sins of their parents for ever and 
ever, — which he did let fly on the Sunday after poor 
widow Faithful lost her only child, a dear little boy of 
fifteen months. No wonder she went crazy the next 
week, and I took her to Worcester ! 

" This must be the meaning of it all, — it is a revela- 
tion of God's love. That is what it is. Consider the 
lilies of the pond, — they all teach this : If God so 
clothe the lilies in brother Jacob's mill-pond, watch 
over them, ripen their seed thus curiously under water, 
sow it there, and keep the race as lasting as the stars, 
1—15 



226 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



will he not much rather bless ever^ soul of saint or sin- 
ner. 0 Rev. Banbaby? Oh. foolish congregations of 
self-denying men, who think you must believe in all the 
clerical nonsense and bad-sense which ministers preach 
at you! where are your eyes, where are your hearts, 
where are your souls, that you make such a fuss about? 

' Why this longing, this for ever sighing 

For such doctrines ghastly, hateful, grim, — 
"While the beautiful, all around thee lying, 

Offers up its low, perpetual hymn? 
Would'st thou listen to its gentle teaching, 

All that restless longing it would still, — 
Flower and pond and laden bee are teaching, 

Thy own sphere with natural work to fill.' " 

Mr. Welltodo is right : that is the meaning of it all. 
Love sums it up : " All things are double " — use this, 
beauty that, Old Testament and New Testament are 
thus bound up in the same volume of nature. What a 
revelation of God's goodness this world of beauty is ! 
How it comes to the tired young milliner, soothes her 
weariness, quickens her imagination, and then laps her 
in the arms of sleep, till all is joyous, blessed rest ! No, 
in that rest she longs for another tranquility, — the 
soul's rest in the infinite perfections of God. 

How this mundane beauty comes to the calculating 
man, lifts him above his " sugars " and his " flours " 
he meant to spend all Sunday in thinking over : and 
shows him the heavenly meaning in this life of ours ! 

What a revelation it is of the cause and providence of 
all this world ! God gives us use ! " giveth liberally." 
You might expect it. But that is not enough for him. 
He adds another world, which feeds and cheers the 
superior faculties. There is use for need and virtue, 
beauty also as overplus and for delight. We ask corn 



BEAUTY IN MATTER 



227 



for bread; God makes it handsome and it feeds the 
mind. It seems to me as if he could not give enough 
to satisfy his own benevolence. How he spreads a table 
with all that is needful for material wants, and then 
gives this beauty as a musical benediction to the feast, 
— a grace before and after meat! To a thoughtful 
man, how the sight of this wakens emotions of reverence, 
love, and trust! Who can doubt the casual goodness 
which makes the fairness? 

Men tell about " miracles," which prove " the great- 
ness of the Lord" and " his goodness too ; " that he 
was once angry with mankind, and sent a flood, which 
killed all the living things on earth from the lowest 
plant up to the highest man, save only eight men and 
women and a troop of inferior animals, whom he kept 
in a great box, which floated for a whole year on this 
ocean of murder, and then let out the ancestors of all 
things that now live upon the earth; that he miracu- 
lously confounded the speech of men building a city, 
and they fled asunder, leaving their abortive work ; that 
he miraculously plagued Egypt with grotesque and aw- 
ful torments, and by miracle led Israel through a sea of 
waters closing on their foes, and into a sea of sand, 
which eat up one generation of the Israelites themselves ; 
nay, that by the ministration of one Hebrew man con- 
tinued miracles were wrought for forty years ; and then, 
yet more wonderful, by another, at whose word water 
was changed to wine, the bread of five sufficed five 
thousand men, the wanting limb came strong again, the 
dead returned to life, — nay, at his death, that the very 
sun stood still, and darkness filled the heavens at high 
noonday, while the rocks were rent, the graves stood 
wide, and buried saints came back to light and life. 
Believe it not! To me such tales are ghastly as Egyp- 



228 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



tian idols and Hindoo images of God, mixing incongru- 
ous limbs of beast and bird and man. In this little leaf 
there is more divinity than in all those monstrous 
legends, writ in letters or carved out in stone. But the 
daily, wonder of nature, which is no miracle, — that is 
the actual revelation of God's power and goodness, a 
diamond of love set in the gold of beauty. 

Look all about you! What a ring of handsomeness 
surrounds the town! What a heaven of loveliness is 
arched over us! See how earth, air, and water are 
turning into bread ! Out of the ground what daily use 
and beauty grow ! Think of the thousand million men 
on earth ; the million millions of beasts, bird, fish, insect ! 
They all hang on the breasts of heaven, and are fed by 
the motherly bounty of infinite perfection. This is a 
clover blossom at one end of the stalk, — at the other 
end is God. Yes, all rests in him, flowers out of him, 
lives by him, leads us to him. All this material beauty 
of nature is but one rose on the bosom of deity, over- 
looked by the infinite loveliness which is alike its cause 
and providence. Yea, the universe of matter is a rev- 
elation of him, — of his power in its strength, of his wis- 
dom in its plan and law, of his love and his loveliness in 
that perfume of the world which we call beauty. 
Earth beneath and heaven above are greater and lesser 
prophets, gospel and epistle, and all unite in one grand 
Psalm, " Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, 
and goodwill to men." 



VI 



GOD'S REVELATION IN MATTER AND MIND 

1. Religious Consciousness 

2. God in the World of Matter 

3. God in the World of Man 

4. God in the Relation Between Matter and 

Man 

5. The World of Matter and the Spirit of 

Man 

6. Relation of Man and God. 



229 



I 



THE INNERMOST FACTS OF RELIGIOUS 

CONSCIOUSNESS 

That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel 
after him, and find him, though he be not far from any one 
of us. — Acts xvii, 27. 

Every animal has instinct suited to its nature, work 
and duty ; thus the young turtle and duck betake them 
to the water as soon as they are born, the egg yet cling- 
ing to the creature's back; the newborn mosquito flies 
from the sharded envelop, his watery cradle, and tries 
his thin wings in the air; and straightway do all these 
seek their food. These young animals do this not as 
an experiment, not by an act of will. Instinct is older 
than experiment, it is stronger than will. It is a power 
executing the plan of some other mind, which is not 
personal to the turtle, duck or mosquito, which thinks 
for them, not merely by them. It is a general and un- 
conscious gravitation, as it were, of the animal towards 
what is needful for his natural work and ultimate des- 
tination. All animals have this power of instinct, 
which becomes before knowledge and will, and with 
them takes the place of religion and conscience. 

Man has a natural work and ultimate destination 
higher than the beasts about him. His whole being is 
more complicated. Hence he has a variety of instincts 
which come before knowledge and will, and at first take 
the place of religion and conscience. They are adequate 
to this work. Here and there an individual man may, 
resist them, but they overpower the mass of men. By 
a force which is not personal and voluntary, depending 
on our will, but impersonal and involuntary, wholly 

231 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



independent of our caprice, do they lead us on towards 
our ultimate destination. This assured control of in- 
stinctive nature over personal will gives a steadiness to 
human action spite of individual caprice. Susan and 
Abijah may fast the next ten days; but mankind will 
eat breakfast, dinner and supper. The human race can 
violate no instincts. Abelard and Eloisa may go into 
the convent and nunnery ; but mankind can neither take 
nor keep monastic vows, no more than the Gulf of St. 
Lawerence could run up the river over Niagara and 
travel that road to Lake Superior. Some of these in- 
stincts tend only to nourish the material excellency of 
man, to provide food, defence, shelter, and the perpetua- 
tion of the race. These man has in common with the 
mosquito, duck and turtle. But as man is both mate- 
rial and spiritual by nature as he has work both for 
time and eternity, and an ultimate destination for 
heaven, as well as a present destination on earth, so in 
him there are instincts not personal nor needed else- 
where. These are commensurate with his complex 
nature, his various works and ultimate destination. 
They connect him with the material and spiritual world. 
Thereby he enters into relations with forms of existence 
not known to the animals. 

Among the faculties peculiarly human there is the 
religious instinct. I mean that original disposition of 
human nature which inclines a man to the Power which 
is over all, to fear or reverence, trust and love that 
Power. This religious instinct is in all men. Like 
other faculties it appears in various degrees, here 
strong, there weak. In kind it is alike in all, in quan- 
tity diverse in each. Like all other spiritual instincts, — 
intellectual, moral or affectional, — it is feeblest in the 



RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS 233 



lowest form of civilization, hardly perceptible in the 
wild man or the baby ; weak in the savage or the child, 
but strong in the enlightened nature and the full-grown 
man. 

This religious instinct is as certain in its action as 
the appetite for food; and though Susan and Abijah 
may control it by their individual caprice, yet it leads 
nations and mankind to recognize a Power in them and 
yet above them. Hence there is as much regularity in 
the religious history of mankind as in the course of 
the Gulf Stream or the zodiacal lights, the mutations of 
the moon or the eclipse of the sun. Individual caprice 
in religion is to the religious development of mankind 
no more than the foam of the shore is to the weight of 
the ocean, an infinitesimal which disturbs nor wind nor 
tide. William and Harriet may deny God, and flout 
at religion ; but mankind can no more be an atheist than 
a monk. Nay, you shall find a nation without bread 
as soon as without a God. 

From this primitive religious instinct has come the 
world of internal religion, which consists of religious 
feeling, thought and will; and this creates the outer 
world of religion — theologies, rituals, forms, cere- 
monies, temples, churches, all round the world. These 
grow out of mankind as naturally and unavoidably as 
the flora and fauna from the ground. In the legend- 
ary Genesis of creation, in Hebrew speech, God says, 
" Let the earth bring forth grass," and the earth 
brought forth grass. In the actual Genesis of history, 
in the instinct and reflection of human nature, God says, 
" Let mankind bring forth forms of religion," and it 
is so. 

Signs of religious life appear early in the history of 
mankind, as of the individual. As soon as man has any 



234 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



personal self -consciousness, and feels " I am a me," he 
has also religious consciousness, and feels this conscious- 
ness of a Power about him everywhere, within him at all 
times, and yet above him. This religious consciousness 
of mankind has had a growth in righteousness as certain 
and continuous as that of yonder elm ; it has been so, is, 
will be. There are individual exceptions, but mankind 
is one great instance of regular and continuous reli- 
gious growth. 

To understand this religious consciousness, and to 
use its vast forces for our own development and perfec- 
tion, let us look its facts carefully in the face, and 
know its great features. To do this carefully and per- 
fectly, take both the method of the natural philosopher, 
who looks on things in large masses, gathers from a 
wide field of observation, and by many facts connects 
what is exceptional, extra or deficient, in a single case; 
and take also the method of the metaphysician, who 
studies the facts of his own individual consciousness, 
and gathers his knowledge from that little walled- 
garden of private experiences. The one method will 
fit the religious consciousness of mankind as shown in 
the great facts of the world's religious history, the 
other the religious consciousness of the individual, 
Susan or Abijah, with their personal caprices and in- 
dividuality of character; but the last helps you under- 
stand the first, as by the experience of your own sight 
you comprehend the theory of vision, which is formed 
on a world of facts you never experienced. 

Take the human race in all times past and present, 
and consider it as one great being, a single human 
nature, continuous in many million human persons; 
call this mankind. Study human history as the per- 
sonal being thereof, and learn the innermost facts of 



RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS 235 



man's religious consciousness. They are these three: 
(1), a feeling of weakness, sinfulness, dependence 
on somewhat; (2), a feeling after what we may depend 
on, and a finding of God; (3), a desire of union with 
God, and a struggle after it. 

These are the three innermost facts of the religious 
consciousness. Look at them a moment in detail. 

Mankind was created wild; men, as other diamonds, 
in the rough. Civilization is the highest work of man, 
not the original gift of God; it is mankind's wages, 
not God's bequest; human income, not divine capital. 
The cause and power only are given by God in human 
nature; by the development and use and enjoyment 
thereof do we attain the result. When this baby man 
first comes to consciousness, he finds himself surrounded 
by forces mightier than he. Wild beasts overmaster 
him, summer burns him, winter freezes, the storm wets. 
There are violent things which make him tremble — the 
hurricane and the thunder, volcano and earthquake. 
Hunger bows him together. Pestilence comes on him 
like a lion. Day and night are swifter and stronger 
than he; the ground, the sun and stars seem old, while 
he is of yesterday; yet they are forever young while 
human hair turns white, and whole generations come and 
go, and go and come. In the midst of these things our 
savage feels weak. They are master, he servant. He 
fears and trembles. He is not his own cause; things 
without direct and control him; they give him birth 
without his foreknowledge or consent, and finish his 
life against his will. He feels his dependence on some- 
what. 

See how the baby comes to consciousness of its body, 
and learns to distinguish between the me of the body 



236 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



and the not-me of the body. So at a later date he be- 
comes conscious of the soul or the entity of his being, 
and learns to distinguish between the me of the soul 
and the not-me of the soul, the me and something other. 
This is the first fact of religious experience. 

He longs for something he can flee to and rest in. 
He fears the evil about him, — wild beasts, thunder, 
storm, pestilence, death ; but with self -consciousness his 
religious instinct wakens, and he feels there is a Power 
stronger than these forces, something he can rely on, 
flee to, trust in, and be safe. He does not know it yet, 
only feels it by instinct, yearns after it, turns towards 
it as the young turtle to the water, as the fly to the air. 
Oh, that he could find this something, and be at home 
with it, getting deliverance from his fear ! So he must 
account to his mind for what his religious instinct hints 
to him. He must know what he relies on as well as 
feel it. Then comes the search after God, the long 
struggle of mankind to find an idea of that Power 
which controls him, a conception equal to his soul's 
desire and need. The longing soul goes wooing for 
its mate. At first it is not God man finds; it is the 
divine rather than deity; I mean a vague Power, not 
conceived of as a person. For in the formation of 
the solar system there was first a huge nebulous mass, 
without form and void, which at length separated into 
concentric, whirling rings, which at last condensed into 
planets, moon and sun; so this object of religious feel- 
ing appears to mankind first as an indirect mass of 
superhuman power before it gets separated into distinct 
conceptions, which men call Brahma, Jehovah or Lord. 
This indefinite object of religious feeling let me call the 
divine. Out of this mass of superhuman power man 
makes his conception of God. In doing this he is con- 



RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS 237 



trolled by the special ethnological disposition of his 
tribe or race ; by the degree of civilization it has reached, 
and also by the aspect of nature, the material world 
about him. When the northern winter starves him with 
hunger and cold, or when the tropic heat scares him 
with its thunder and ligtning, with tornado and pesti- 
lence, or when earthquakes and volcanoes disturb the 
peace of the world, then this religious consciousness of 
the savage takes the form of fear, and the conception 
of God is terrible. But if the sky be mild, the forces 
of nature friendly; if the world smiles on him, his re- 
ligious consciousness reflects the smile, and his concep- 
tion of God is more lovely. So the conception of God 
always depends on three forces : 

(1), on the ethnological disposition of the people; 
(2), on the degree of development which man's facul- 
ties have reached; and (3), on the aspects of nature 
which surround him. 

In the history of mankind's search after God, while 
he is separating the divine into definite deities, you 
notice three distinct forms of conception he arrives at 
and rests in for a time: 

(1), God conceived of as the forces of nature; (2), 
God conceived of as the forces of man; (3), God con- 
ceived of as neither nature nor yet man, but as infinite 
perfection, which includes each, the matter of nature 
and the spirit of man, and transcends both. All actual 
or possible conceptions of God may be classed under 
one or other of these three heads, for man has but the 
three categories wherein to class the divine, — Matter, 
Spirit, Infinity. But the three pass into each other, by 
invisible shades, similar at the circumference, where 
this combines with that, though they are utterly unlike 
at the centre. 



238 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



In the first, man takes the most dangerous beasts for 
God. They are objects of worship. Thus, in India 
the lion and tiger, in Egypt the crocodile, in South 
Africa the lion and boa constrictor, in Siberia the bear, 
have all been held as God. The brute enemies of man 
are typified as God. 

Subtle and crafty animals, or such as are mysterious 
in their instincts, their movements or modes of life, are 
thought divine. Thus the cat, the snake, the beetle, the 
stork, become sacred objects of religious worship. 

Then the useful animals come in for their place, and 
the cow and bull are transformed into beneficent deities. 

The great forces of nature are thought God, — the 
thunder, lightning, wind, fire, the volcano, the earth- 
quake. 

The great objects of nature which have a continuous 
power, some vast forest, some great river, the holy 
Rhine, Nile, Ganges; some mountains, Olympus, Cau- 
casus ; the sea, the earth, the sun, the moon, and " those 
five other wandering fires," the daily or the nightly 
heaven. 

But as no one of these is God, and as only the fact 
can ultimately content man, so he gradually outgrows 
each of these conceptions, and travels further in his re- 
ligious pilgrimage, whereof each step is a needful part, 
and every fall is found an experience which is helpful. 
The beastly deity was once a triumph of religious 
thought. I look over a missionary museum of idols as 
a collection of farm tools of ages past. 

At length God is conceived of as a man, a personal 
God with human qualities enlarged and extended wide. 
At first it is a man mixed with beasts, whereof the 
Egyptian idols still present the proofs. Soon it is man 
without the beast. 



RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS 239 



It is a cruel man, with great powers of self-will, " a 
man of war." Moloch, Mars, Ares, Thor are ex- 
amples. God is regarded as almighty human power 
and wrath. 

Then it is a wise man, with power of knowledge, God 
as all-knowing mind. This is a great advance above 
the brute force of the step below. 

Then it is a moral man, with power of justice, a firm 
unbending law. God is also retributive justice. This 
is another great step, from the wise man made God to 
the conscience raised to deity. 

Then it is an affectional man, with power of benevo- 
lence. God is all-blessing love. Here, too, is a great 
step, to introduce love into the composition of deity. 

But all these are necessarily limited. Personality is 
being with a limitation; not the wide sky, but a bag- 
ful of air, no more. In the nature of the beast or of 
the world we find no adequate representation of God. 
Even the natural revelation conceived as a unit of force 
was not God enough to answer the need of thoughtful 
man. No more is the spirit of man an edequate repre- 
sentation of God. So in all these ideas of God in 
human form, in the six great historic forms of religion 
among civilized men, the conception of God is found 
inadequate to human needs, for there are limitations to 
the excellence ascribed to God. His power of will is 
hindered by caprice; his power of knowledge by the 
uncertainty of human conduct; his power of justice by 
selfishness, which breaks its own law ; his power of love 
by hate. The present prevailing conception of God 
in religious history is God in the form of man ; inspired 
man, as Moses, Prophets, Apostles; transfigured men, 
as angels, spirits; God-man, as Christ, very God and 
very man ; or God-woman, as the Virgin Mary. Each 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



one of these conceptions has its faults, and though men 
call it perfect as a whole, in detail you see it is not so. 
These conceptions become unsatisfactory ; they are 
fluctuating, not fixed; man revises his statutes, and his 
idea of God, both amenable to perpetual improvement. 

At length the idea of God in the form of man is left 
behind, and the soul conceives of God as Infinite Per- 
fection. He has not the limit of brute matter, matter 
which is only static or dynamic force; nor the limit of 
animated beasts, which are matter vitalized, matter and 
something more; nor with the limitations of man, who 
though animal and something more, spiritual as well 
as material power, is yet spirit with limitations. Men 
conceive of God, not with the limitations of impersonal- 
ity, which is below man, nor with the limits of human 
personality; but as Absolute Being, whose nature em- 
braces all perfections men can conceive, and yet tran- 
scends that conceived perfection. He must have the 
perfection of being and of power and of mind, — all 
knowledge, not knowing by proofs as we know, but with- 
out proofs ; of conscience, perfect knowledge of right ; 
of will, perfect freedom; of affection, perfect love; 
of religion, perfect integrity. God must feel right, 
know right, will right, do right. Personal ourselves, we 
must use the help of personality to express what we 
know transcends the limits of personality. 

Thus we have developed the second of these innermost 
facts of religious consciousness, and step by step 
attained the knowledge of God. If the civilized man 
stands high on the ladder, let him remember each step 
is on the shoulders of a man ; and you and I are further 
up than Moses or Buddha, Paul or Jesus, because we 
come later, and stand on their heads in this mighty 



RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS 241 



pyramid of human history, half of whose height is hid 
below the ground. As the philosopher who perfects a 
Crystal Palace 1 is dependent on the rude men who may 
a thousand years gone by have begun to clear wood, 
to pile stone into walls, or to work iron ; and on all the 
geometers who thought out the laws of structure, the 
quantitative relations of things ; and the architects who 
builded wigwam or cathedral, so he who to-day from 
his lofty idea of God as infinite power, wisdom, justice, 
love, integrity, depends on all the men of great reli- 
gious thought from Calvin back to Moses, and on the 
millions of men and women of great religious feeling, 
who furnished the combined material for the theologian's 
thought. So much for the second great fact of re- 
ligious consciousness. 

The third great fact is the desire of union with God, 
to be on good terms with the deity, to do God's will, 
and to be at one with him, your individual string tuned 
to the general concord of his melody. After man has 
found a conception of God equal to his soul's desire, he 
yearns for intimate union with that deity. So he does 
deeds suited to the will of his special conception of God. 
High above him is the God he worships, to whom he 
submits all his pleasures and his purposes. The service 
man pays is proportionate to the character of his deity. 
Here it is revenge, there it is forgiveness. Abraham 
sacrifices Isaac, the good Samaritan heals a wounded 
stranger. 

From his desire of union with God come all forms of 

worship. The sacrifices of old time were made to 

Jehovah by the Hebrews or to Zeus by the Greeks. 

Was it thought that a man had a limb or a member 

which God did not like, it was cut off. Thence also 
1—16 



242 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



came the creeds of nations. Hence priestly men whose 
business was to appease God, and make him propitious 
to the special worshipper. Hence all the temples, con- 
vents, nunneries of the world. If God was thought 
cruel, the means of pleasing him were found in cruelty 
towards those who were deemed to be his enemies. 
Hence came the cruel persecutions of the Christians by 
the Pagans, of the Jews by the Christians, by the Catho- 
lics of the Protestants, by the Protestants of the Catho- 
lics, by the Mormons of the Christians, and by the 
Christians of the Mormons. But if God be thought 
friendly, wise, just, loving, then must we seek to find 
the way to him by the development of our nature by 
morality and piety, wisdom, justice, love, humanity, 
integrity; i. e., by the normal use of all the faculties 
he gives. Each age helps the next, as the next genera- 
tion of merchants will learn wisdom by means of the 
commercial crisis in the midst of which those of to-day 
are now struggling. So it is with this third great fact 
of religious consciousness. 

Now, as you look over human history there is a re- 
markable unity in it. All nations become conscious of 
weakness, dependence. All seek after and find a con- 
ception of God which is suited to their experience of 
nature and observation thereof, to their ethnological 
disposition, to their degree of development of faculties. 
All seek union with God in ways suited to their idea of 
him. Each nation and age thinks it is contented with 
its idea of God and its form of religion; the savage 
not less than the civilized, the Jew than the Christian. 
But no progressive age or nation is content; all are 
seeking for what is newer and better. There is a con- 
tinual growth of religious consciousness. The concep- 



RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS 243 



tion of God rises from' beastial or material force to 
human power, from brute caprice to love which em- 
braces all men ; it rises from the limitations of personal 
humanity to unlimited infinite perfection. There is the 
same progress in the idea of union with God. Man 
passes from the sacrifice left on a rock for a lion or a 
tiger; from the Hebrew mutilation of the body or the 
Christian mutilation of mind, conscience, heart and soul, 
up to the highest development of love and good-will. 
Abraham would save his soul by the sacrifice of his 
only son; Jesus of Nazareth by dying would save 
others. 

Let us not scorn the humble steps of the staircase of 
humanity. Every idol which Caucasian, Mongol, 
Malay, American, Ethiopian ever formed or fancied 
has been a help in mankind's religious development, a 
groping after God. These are mile-stones along the 
human path, which show how far man had got at that 
time. Extinct forms of religion are the cast-off clothes 
which man leaves behind him, because he has outgrown 
them or else outworn. At Washington, in the Library 
of Congress, you see the books which George Washing- 
ton used at school. So in history, the records of the 
past, you find the old forms of religion. So all the 
theologies, — Brahmin, Buddhist, Classic, Hebrew, 
Christian, Catholic, Protestant, Calvinistic, Lutheran, 
Trinitarian, Unitarian, — are steps on that pilgrimage. 
The Hebrew groped after God, and held up the Old 
Testament as the only image of him who dwelleth not 
in temples. Of him they would make no likeness save 
in word, nor speak his name lest the Gentiles should 
learn it, and find the way to his divine favor. The 
Greeks groped after God, and found the divine image 
broken into many fragments. So the East Indian, so 



244 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



the Catholic, so the Protestant. Mankind needs the 
gift of all of these contributions to progress, nay, the 
least of them. All forms of religion are attempts at 
union with God; the rude to bring God down, the re- 
fined to raise man up. Sacrifices, priests, processions, 
pilgrimages, psalms and hymns, and other religious 
acts, in all the thousand languages of the earth, are but 
attempts to woo the presence of the Divine, entreating 
him, with all the handsome names of human speech. 
Man draws his bow at a venture! How many experi- 
ments, but not one in forty hits the mark ; yet mankind 
did its best, and not a single shot has been in vain or 
could be spared. Plow long the baby tries to walk ! 
From birth to manhood it is more than twice ten tedious 
years, and yet this individual life is but three score 
years and ten. Mankind is to live forever in eternity, 
and so can afford a long babyhood. Man hopes for 
union with God here, and still more hereafter. All 
the idolatries of the Tartar, Hottentot, New Hol- 
lander, are attempts at it; the best which the place, 
the nation, the culture would allow. Mutilation of 
one's own body was for this; for this the persecu- 
tion of other men. For this the monk went to his 
grim convent, for this the nun shut herself up within 
her ugly cell enclosed by walls of stone, not by 
arms of husband and daughter and son; for this the 
hermit went naked, fed on water-cresses, dwelt in a 
hollow rock; for this the fires of Smithfield reeked with 
human flesh; for this the branch of yonder elm groaned 
with a Quaker woman whom our fathers hanged there 
once. For this in many a land the Catholic lies down 
and worships a bit of bread when a Latin priest cries 
out, " Behold your God ;" for this in old India the 
Buddhist throws him before the idol car, 2 and has 



RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS 245 



his body crushed to death, amid applauding crowds ; 
for this in New England the Calvinist bows him before 
his grim and awful God, rejoices in the hell which he 
thinks shall sunder you and me, and has his humanity 
crushed out of his soul. It is union with God they 
seek. When America inducts into office her thirty 
thousand ministers, it is thus she reads the ecclesiastical 
contract : " Lo, I am weak, lead me to the Rock that is 
higher than I. Help me to know my God, to serve 
him, win his love, be one with him." This is what the 
church means. Spiritualism is a groping after God. 
"Oh, ye spirits of just men made perfect, or righteous 
men rising upwards, come tell us of God, and how to be 
one with him." Even atheism, the spiritual atheism of 
honest men, is a struggle for the same thing; it is a 
protest against the unrighteous idea of God which our 
theology offers. It comes from an inspiration of reli- 
gious consciousness, as often as from the want of such 
inspiration. Such is the teaching of mankind. 

The individual man goes through the same. These 
three things are the innermost facts of our religious 
consciousness. You and I are mankind in little, and 
a cup of water gives the same horizon as the Atlantic 
sea. You and I feel the same weakness and depend- 
ence amid strong things which overmaster, the same 
desire to know God, the same yearning to be at one with 
him. Hence are groanings that cannot be uttered. 

Each thoughtful man has been oppressed with his 
own weakness. How powerless seems the individual 
man ; in childhood, how dependent on the care of father 
and mother ; in youth, on guardians and teachers ; in 
manhood, how circumstances turn us about ! How 
much depends on what at first seems accident or fate! 
Our bodily condition, strength, health, beauty ; our 



246 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



weakness, sickness, disability, dates back to ancestors we 
never saw. Our education, social position, domestic 
prosperity, depend on others whom we cannot control. 
No one is his own cause. There is a providence. Do 
you not feel this dependence in prosperity? I speak 
in a town which not long since was so blown with wealth 
that its leading merchants, lawyers, physicians, priests, 
denied there was any Higher Law. Politics depend 
only on politicians, trade on merchants ; neither is avail- 
able to seek ought else. When one man stole your let- 
ters from the mail, runs off with your railroad or 
another pockets your factories, and uses ninety thou- 
sand of your dollars to bribe representatives and sena- 
tors withal; when a panic sweeps off the earnings of 
your life, the uncertainty of business makes us feel the 
dependence of our nature; still more when death 
darkens our window with his wings and leads off father, 
mother, lover, beloved, husband, wife, child, dear one. 

We all of us seek to know the Power which orders it 
all. Our religious instinct, like that of mankind, tells 
you and me it is a design, not chance; not blind fate, 
but a Father's power. So we all inquire what is God. 
We would find him out unto perfection. Hence the 
effort to obtain a true conception of God, an idea which 
corresponds to the facts of observation without, of 
consciousness within. We go to the Bible, to the Cath- 
olic church, to Trinitarianism, Unitarianism, Mormon- 
ism, — " Show us the true Father," cry we. The 
Spiritualists would invoke the dead, — " Come back, 
Moses, Elias, Abraham; come back, Calvin, Sweden- 
borg, Channing, Paul ; tell us what is God and of what 
character." On the small scale as the great, the an- 
swer which contents us depends on our individual dis- 
positions, our degree of culture, and on our surround- 



RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS 247 



ings. To many men nothing is presented but the grim 
and ugly conception of God which the popular theology 
affords, almighty power combined with almighty 
wrath. They either turn off to atheism for relief or 
else settle down into supreme fear of their almighty 
devil, the soul choked in the grasp of an awful hand. 
Happy is he who finds an idea of God which answers 
to the world without, adequate to the purposes of sci- 
ence; the world within, adequate to the needs of daily 
inward life! If the idea of Infinite Perfection comes 
to the soul, how glad we are! what growth it helps of 
every faculty! 

How we seek for union with God, here and hereafter ! 
For this the Hebrew circumcises his newborn boy; for 
this the Christian dips or sprinkles his child; for this 
the Sunday school; for this the Christian's prayer, the 
attempt at revivals of religion, four-days meetings, 
camp-meetings; for this the agony of individual per- 
sons, the cry, " God be merciful to me a sinner," or 
the groanings which cannot be uttered. For this men 
join the churches, and try to believe the various creeds, 
listen to the wailing music of the Catholic church, to 
the groans and sighs of the organ at Harlem or Fri- 
burg, hear the Methodist hymn and join in the en- 
thusiasm it expresses in a great congregation. Do not 
all of us long for union with God, to think his thought, 
to will his law, to feel, to trust, to enjoy his love, yes, 
to live it now and forever ! 

With different degrees of force will men feel their 
dependence on a Power more than human; some not 
until adversity has laid them low. I will welcome the 
fall if it help me fly. We shall not all be content with 
the same idea of God or the same mode of union with 



248 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



him. The choice will depend on our character, that on 
our natures, gifts, and the circumstances about us. 
The Chief Justice of Massachusetts had a slave woman 
before him the other day. Massachusetts said to her, 
" This moment you are free ; you may continue so, 
and your children not yet alive will be all free-born. 
You may make yourself again a slave, then your chil- 
dren will be also slaves, so born, so bred, cattle, not 
men ! choose as you will ! " She chose slavery, bond- 
age for herself, bondage for her children not yet born! 
It is so in religion. Preach to one man a God of 
Infinite Perfection, and a religion which is piety and 
morality, the service of God by freedom of mind, free- 
dom of conscience, freedom of affection, freedom of 
soul, he does not like it ; he wants fear not love, a devil 
for God and bondage to outward authority of another's 
caprice; not natural freedom, but slavery of mind, 
slavery of conscience, slavery of heart and soul. The 
world is wide, let each feed where he finds his bread. 
Let each be faithful to his own soul. We may well 
believe that in all ages 

" Every human heart is human, 
That in even savage bosoms 
There are longings, yearnings, strivings 
For the good they comprehend not, 
That the feeble hands and helpless, 
Groping blindly in the darkness, 
Touch God's right hand in that darkness 
And are lifted up and strengthened." 

When a man finds an idea of God which answers all 
the needs of his present consciousness, and offers sup- 
ply for future wants which come of what he feeds and 
grows upon; when he finds a mode of religion which 
encourages the natural and normal action of every 



RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS 249 

limb of his body ; when in the innermost of his re- 
ligious consciousness this God reveals himself as the 
cause and providence of you and me and all that is; 
and this mode of religion goes before and above him, 
an ideal whose guiding shadow leads him all the day, 
whose compassing fire encamps about him all the night, 
its presence, too, a rereward betwixt him and the 
ancient ills of some Egyptian darkness and bondage 
he has left behind, then what joy is his, what tran- 
quillity and peace, and rest for the soul! It opens us 
a path through deep waters ; it leads us across the wil- 
derness, gives us bread from heaven, bread of life, 
water from the Rock, living water; we hunger and 
thirst no more, but in the strength thereof we journey 
on our three-score years and ten, 



" And by the vision splendid 
Are on the way attended." 



2 



GOD IN THE WORLD OF MATTER 

The heavens declare the glory of God. — Psalm xix, 1. 

I ask your attention to some thoughts on the signs 
and proofs of God found in the world of matter. I 
assume only two things at the outset: first, that the 
world of matter exists ; secondly, that the faculties of 
man may be trusted to tell us the truth. Take the 
world of matter as far as understood now, and from 
the facts of the universe what can we learn about God? 
Let us look with no prejudice and see what we find in 
the world of matter. 

Everywhere we find a vast power, and an ability to 
produce material effects. The world is not a dead 
thing. You find not only a deed done, a form formed ; 
but also a doer doing, a form forming. Look at some 
details of this power. For convenience let us put this 
power into three forms — power of motion, of vegeta- 
tion, and of animation. 

What a power of motion there is in the world ! 
Nothing is still. What we call rest is but the equi- 
librium or balance of many motions. On a large scale, 
see this in the planets revolving round the sun, in the 
winds, in the Waters. On a small scale, see it in the 
rust of metals, in the growth and decay of wood, in 
the crumbling of stone, which is occasioned only by 
the motion of particles, as day and night, as summer 
and winter, by the motion of the earth. 

How many forms of this motion there are! At- 
traction causes the movement of bodies, as bulk to bulk, 

250 



GOD IN MATTER 



mi 



gross weight to gross weight. Here the quantity alone 
is effective, not the quality. Attraction, on a large 
scale, makes the sun and planets gravitate together, 
grouping Neptune and Mercury, and all the orbs be- 
tween, into the solar system; a whole with a certain 
unity of static and dynamic power. On a small scale, 
it makes the atoms of water cohere into a spheral drop, 
another whole with a certain unity of static and 
dynamic force. This is quantitative attraction. The 
qualitative, which we call affinity, is the attraction of 
like to like. Gravitation musters all sorts of forces 
into the great army of the world, forever on the march, 
its little companies, platoons, and files of matter coher- 
ing well. What various elements make up this earthen 
regiment, wherein we are also getting trained ! But af- 
finity joins in yet closer wedlock like-minded things, 
though in this chemical, as in the human marriage, op- 
posites often come together to make a richer whole. 

What power of motion is there also in heat, light, 
electricity ! Put all these together — motion caused by 
attraction, bulk drawing bulk by affinity, congenial 
atom in chemical union wooing and wedding each 
its own, by heat, light, electricity, and what a power 
of motion there is in the world! These fivefold forms 
go on continually, and never cease. They compose the 
material basis of all higher things, which rest thereon 
and grow. All these most diverse powers of motion — 
attraction, affinity, heat, light, electricity 3 — agree in 
this, that they are dead motion; they produce com- 
bination, not growth. The sulphate of copper which 
effloresces on the outside of the electric battery, or the 
common salt which effloresces on the outside of the 
housewife's earthen jar of butter, is each a dead power 
— chemical, not botanic, made, not grown. The 



252 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



quartz crystal found in some New Hampshire rock has 
no growth in it. The particles came together by at- 
traction, affinity, heat, electricity. The solar system 
is a work of mechanical attraction, not growth; a fos- 
sil, not a flower. 

But higher than this five-fold power of motion is the 
power of vegetation — botanic growth. Here is mo- 
tion, but differing in kind from what is caused by at- 
traction, affinity, light, heat, electricity. The atoms 
of dust which float in the air are matter, nothing more ; 
the housewife's flower of salt is matter crystallized — 
matter plus organization. The humblest lichen which 
grows on the damp wall of a city house is more, is mat- 
ter botanized — organization plus growth. They pro- 
duce the mask of vegetation, while the little lichen or 
the huge baobab tree 4 shows us the face. What a 
power of vegetation is there in the world! It covers 
the land; it lines the bottom of the shallow sea. Its 
great glory is in the gorgeous paradise of the tropics, 
whence it fades off towards either pole, where there are 
snow and ice, only chemic or mechanical flowers of mo- 
tion, not cactuses and Amazonian lilies. How vast 
this power of vegetation is! What wondrous forms it 
turns to, and what a mighty function is fulfils, pro- 
viding food for all things higher than vegetables, which 
live thereon ! 

Animation is another form of power; as much above 
vegetation as that is above mere motion. An animal 
is a plant, and something more. A crystal is matter 
organized; a plant, matter botanized; an animal, mat- 
ter vitalized. What power of animation there is in the 
world! It peoples the land; it crowds the sea full of 
its fertile spawn. It pushes its handsome branches 
into the air, which hums with insects, and twitters with 



GOD IN MATTER 



253 



birds. What various forms this animation assumes! 
radiates, mollusks, articulates, vertebrates, or into 
whatsoever states of life naturalists may divide this 
great kingdom of animated nature. So much for the 
fact of power in these three forms of motion, of vege- 
tation, and of animation. 

Note this general fact common to these three forms; 
the power is resident on the spot. It is not something 
foreign, which comes in from abroad, and acts spas- 
modically ; it is something resident, " to the manor 
born," settled on the spot. Power of motion is in the 
moving bodies ; power of attraction is in the sun and in 
Neptune and all the intervening orbs which gravitate 
to the solar system ; it is in the particles of water which 
cohere to a special system of particles. Power of affinity 
is in the atom of hydrogen and in the atom of oxygen 
which unite. Power of heat is in the fire, the central 
earth and the sun. Power of light is in the rays un- 
dulating throughout all space. Power of electricity is 
in the spark which occupies the ground, the water, and 
the air, and in the things they enfold. This fivefold 
power of motion is not a force which comes in ca- 
pricious, and capricious goes ; it is a permanent settler, 
present always in its proper home. The power of vege- 
tation is in the plant and its conditions of growth, not 
something outside of the plant and its conditions of 
growth. So the power of animation is in the animals 
and their conditions. The power of life is in the things 
that live. It is not a non-resident power which comes 
in from without and acts by fits and starts. It is per- 
manently settled in the radiates, mollusks, articulates, 
and vertebrates. This threefold power which I speak 
of, whereof the world is full, is an immanent power, 



254* MATTER AND SPIRIT 



residing on the spot. You find it nowhere else. There 
is no power of motion except in things movable; no 
power of vegetation except in things vegetable; no 
power of animation except in things animal. Matter 
is the nest of power; that is, that combination of cir- 
cumstances and conditions necessary to the thing's be- 
ing. 

So far then, all we have gathered from the universe 
is the presence of power, ability to produce effects in 
three forms — power of motion, of vegetation, of ani- 
mation. This power is the first thing that strikes the 
looker on. 

Now, as we look further, we find that all these forms 
of power have a certain regularity, Motion is so, and 
not otherwise. There is a law of motion, a constant 
mode of operation for all moving things. On a still 
day, the acorn drops from the bough, and falls straight 
to the ground, one rod the first second, three rods the 
second second, five rods the third, and so on, — falling 
with accelerated velocity. This law of accelerated ve- 
locity prevails always and everywhere. A single force 
makes a thing move in a straight line, several in a curved 
line; and the same forces combining at the same angle 
always produce the same curve. This applies to the 
apple that little Johnny throws to his little cousin 
Susey, and to the bombs with which the British shelled 
Sebastopol and Delhi; to the vast sweep of Neptune 
round the central sun ; and to the comet's nightly range. 
This law of motion is universal in all space which man 
studies; it is constant in all time, past and present. 
The gunner knows just where his shell will strike, the as- 
tronomer knows just where the planet Neptune was on 
the tenth of January, a million years ago ; he knows 



GOD IN MATTER 



255 



where it will be the next tenth of January, or a million 
years hence. Even the comets, which at first seem to be 
nothing but vagabonds — " vagrants of the sides " — 
in their eccentric course, are presently found to have a 
beaten track, and to observe a constant law of motion, 
which never changes. There is a corresponding law 
for every form of motion. The attraction of two 
things lessens as the square of their distance greatens. 
This rule is likewise universal, in all space and time. 

So affinity has its laws. Things combine in differ- 
ent proportions. Every housewife knows that a quart 
of boiling water will dissolve so many ounces of sugar, 
and no coaxing, nor scolding, nor praying, will make 
it take up one pennyweight more ; and when it cools, it 
drops part of what it took when hot. The chemist 
knows that one pound of hydrogen will unite with eight 
pounds of oxygen, and make nine pounds of water ; but 
if he puts one and a half pounds of hydrogen to eight 
of oxygen, the oxygen takes its fill from the one pound, 
and leaves the other half pound mechanically adjacent, 
not chemically mixed. 

The same is true of each other form of power — 
heat, light, electricity. Each has its constant law, that 
never changes. The power of vegetation has likewise 
its laws, its constant mode of operation. In the growth 
of a pine tree by the process of vegetation, the mineral 
matter of the earth, air, water is changed into a plant. 
The pine assimilates the substance of the earth, but 
each plant must have its own special nest of circum- 
stances or it does not grow. Vegetation takes place 
only under certain conditions, in certain states of earth, 
air, water, under certain conditions of attraction, affin- 
ity, heat, light, electricity. There is a range of attrac- 
tion, and temperature, and light. A greater attraction 



256 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



between the sun and Jupiter would not allow a plant 
to grow. No plant on earth will live at a hundred and 
fifty degrees of heat, or at the zero point of cold. 
Mosses will not grow with too much sunshine or too 
little. Each special kind of plant must have its special 
place. There is a special law by which the lichen grows 
on the damp wall of a city house, and the baobab tree 
builds up its mighty form. Every country boy who 
has to drive the cows to pasture knows that certain 
mosses grow only on the north side of a tree, and in 
the darkest night he can feel the four quarters of the 
heavens by putting his hands round a tree, and finding 
where the great mosses grow. He knows that mush- 
rooms, toadstools, and other fungi grow only about 
decaying substances. Every woodchopper knows that 
the north side of a pasture-oak contains the compact- 
est wood, and is the hardest to cut. Each zone of tem- 
perature has its special kind of plants ; nay, every con- 
tinent and island has its peculiar flora. So vegetation 
is dependent on conditions, on the attraction of the 
earth, on the state of the ground, air, heat, light, elec- 
tricity. These constant modes of operation of the 
vegetative power are known because we find them al- 
ways kept. There is a special law by which each plant 
is governed, from the lichen which grows on the damp 
wall of a city house, building up its little evanescency, 
to the baobab tree growing its huge and lasting frame, 
— the constant mode of operation of botanic growth. 

So is it with the power of animation. It has its 
law, its constant mode of operation. Plants grow out 
of the mineral world ; it is their bed and board, the gen- 
eral nest of growth. All animals live on the vegetable 
world, or on such as feed thereon; no animal lives on 



GOD IN MATTER 



257 



the mineral world. Each class of animals has its own 
special condition, its special nest of circumstances. 
This loves only the land, the water would be fatal; 
that only the water, air and land would drown the fish. 
Each climate has its peculiar animal, each animal its 
special habits of action, which are just as certain and 
regular as the motion of an acorn falling in a right 
line, with accelerated velocity, to the ground. The 
beast's organization determines what food it shall live 
on. In the prophet's ideal world of peace, it is said 
that " the lion shall eat straw like the ox." It was 
good Hebrew poetry, and was meant for that and noth- 
ing more. The lion can no more live by eating grass 
than the ox by eating lions. Ox and lion must take 
each what his organization demands, when he stands 
at God's table, and say nothing about it for conscience 
sake. 

So there is a constant mode of operation whereby 
each animal builds up its frame, the law of animate life. 
This law resides in the nature of the thing; it is the 
constant mode of operation of its power. The law of 
motion is in the nature and structure of things that 
move. The law of attraction, affinity, heat, light, elec- 
tricity is in the special bodies subject thereto. So the 
law of vegetation is in vegetables and plants and their 
conditions; and the law of animation is in the animals, 
— radiates, mollusks, articulates, vertebrates. In 
either case, it is not something outside, which comes in 
for a time, and acts by fits and starts; it is something 
that is always present there — just as solidity is in 
things solid, extension in things extended, divisibility in 
things divisible. The law of motion is in moving 
things, the law of vegetation is in growing things, the 
law of animation is in living things. 
1—17 



258 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



So far, the world of matter reveals to us power and 
also law — not power acting capriciously, but acting 
regularly, by constant modes of operation. There is 
a plan in all these things — motion, vegetation, anima- 
tion ; not only for a plan for each, in its separate action, 
but for all, in their joint activity. The power of mo- 
tion in its five forms — attraction, affinity, heat, light, 
electricity — is a condition of the power of vegetation ; 
without it no growth would be possible ; take away from 
the world of matter either of these five modes of mo- 
tion, and not a plant could be produced. Vegetation 
is the condition of the power of animation, without it 
not an animal could exist. Matter, moving by attrac- 
tion, affinity, heat, light, electricity, is the nest for 
vegetation ; matter moving, and vegetation are the nest 
for animals. The world of matter is the nest of forms, 
and power the nest of law. 

The fact that this power of motion, vegetation, ani- 
mation, acts in these constant modes of operation, after 
plans so regular, so universal, serves a purpose, shows 
that there is, likewise, intelligence in this world of mat- 
ter, a something which knows and wills. It is not brute 
force, acting without knowledge and will; but an intelli- 
gent power, working by means well understood, con- 
tinually directed to certain ends, which were meant to 
take place. 

This intelligence let us call by the name of Mind, — 
by which I mean power of knowledge and will; mind 
which knows without process of thought, will which 
decides without hesitation or choice; not mind and will 
with human limitations, but absolute mind and will. The 
evidences of this mind are to be seen on every hand ; on 
a large scale in the structural plan of the solar system, 



GOD IN MATTER 



259 



with Neptune far off and Mercury close at hand, with 
many an intervening planet moving in rhythmic order 
round the sun. There is mind in this structural plan 
of the whole solar system, for every orb moves forever 
in its calculated track, which is shaped by the joint 
action of the sun and every planet, all of which act con- 
stantly by the law of motion and its constant mode of 
operation. Each revolves once a year 5 about the sun, 
and turns each day about its own centre of weight, al- 
ways in the exactest order, never varying. This two- 
fold motion produces effects which never fail, which are 
incident to the power of vegetation and the power of 
animation. 

You see the same evidence of mind in the structure 
of the earth, in its complicated form, the inevitable 
product of many certain forces ; in the arrangement of 
its great divisions of matter into air, water, land, in 
the special composition of each of these, and the fitness 
of each for its special function. And on a small scale 
you see the same power of mind, with knowledge and 
will, in the formation of crystals, the growth of plants, 
and the insects which live thereon. 

Study the leaf of an orange tree, — what wisdom is 
displayed in its structure; how admirable its architec- 
ture; what nice framework, what exquisite finish; how 
intelligently are the elements combined in its chem- 
istry, how the power of vegetation assimilates the par- 
ticles of earth, air, water, whereby it grows into a 
plant ! What a function the leaf has to perform — 
this little mason, building up the stem of the tree, and 
getting ready the substance of its flower and fruit! 
See the nice apparatus by which the plant breathes and 
gets its food ! No city government can get a steam 
fire-engine to pump water with such economy as this 



260 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



little " Miles Greenwood " 6 uses to keep itself always 
fired up, in good repair, and ready for action. Look 
at the aphis which has its world on this little leaf! 
See with what intelligence the same power of mind has 
used the power of life to fashion this minute creature ; 
what organs he has to satisfy his individual wants; 
what power to perpetuate his race, wherewith he takes 
hold on eternity, forward and backward! Behind him 
he has a line of ancestors reaching beyond Noah, 
Methuselah and Adam. Study his internal structure; 
how wonderful the means which conspire to form his in- 
sect life ! No municipal government is carried on with 
such wisdom. How admirable must be that constitution 
which gives unity of action to all his members, all work- 
ing as one, and secures variety of action to each, indi- 
vidual freedom for each special member! It is so 
everywhere in the world of matter. 

Now turn over that great volume wherein for many 
million years the Daily Journal and Evening Tran- 
script 7 of the world appear, each leaf bound in stone, 
study this Old Testament of ages past, when no man 
trod on the earth, and on every page, in every line, in 
each letter, do you find the same mind, power of knowl- 
edge and power of will. That power is constant in all 
time which this great earthen book keeps record of, and 
it is continuous in all space whereof its annals tell. The 
more comprehensively things are studied on a great scale 
the more vast this mind appears in its far-reaching 
scope of time and space. The more minutely things are 
inquired after on a small scale, the more delicate ap- 
pears this power of mind in its action. The solar system 
is not too big for this mind to grasp and hold, nor the 
eye of an aphis too small for it to finish off and pro- 
vide for, as well as for the sun, that great eye of all 



GOD IN MATTER 



261 



these spheres, and also lamp and fire-place for so many 
worlds all full of motion, growth and life. 

This mind is not a non-resident, which comes and 
goes, now here and now elsewhere, which acts by ca- 
price, by fits and starts ; it is mind always on the spot, 
resident in things, not outside of things ; active also 
in things. It is not mind afar off or idle, but ever- 
present mind, ever active in the solar system, — in the 
earth, in the air, in the water, in the quartz crystal that 
sparkles on a lady's finger, in the orange leaf at your 
parlor window, in the aphis that feeds thereon. It is 
not mind condensed, concentrated into a single spot or 
one minute; but diffused through all space, through 
every point, likewise, of time that we are acquainted 
with. 

Now this mind, this power of knowledge and will, is 
not limited by any actual form of things. The seed 
knows nothing of the orange tree which thence shall 
grow; the aphis knows nothing of its posterity, there 
is no genealogical society to look up his ancestors; but 
this mind provides for all, transcends the actual form. 
The plant transcends the seed, the aphis transcends his 
ancestors. So the solar system is no limit; the doer 
doing continually transcends the thing done. And yet 
it is a very remarkable fact that this mind never 
seems experimenting, and thereby growing wiser. It 
is true you notice progress in the results of mind, in 
the deed done. Thus there is a continual ascending 
grade — first brute matter, an atom ; then matter or- 
ganized, as in the crystal; then matter botanized, as in 
the plant ; then matter vitalized, as in the animal. And 
so there is a progress in the deed done; but the lowest 
is just as complete as the highest in its way, an atom 
as a crystal, a plant as an animal. The structural 



262 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



plan of the lowest creature is just as perfect as the 
structural plan of the highest mammal; the details 
of a joint in a snow-flea's leg are finished with just as 
much care as the fiery atmosphere which surrounds the 
sun; that snow-flea's relation to his circumstances was 
cared for just as much as the sun's to the solar system 
he irradiates. There is no mark of the apprentice 
hand, no experiment which fails; the end seems known 
before as well as at the last. The rocks contain the 
annals of the world of matter for many a million years, 
all writ in the same hand-writing; but there is no mark 
which shows that a single letter was ever written wrong, 
and then erased and the right one put instead. So, 
though there be perpetual progress in the deed done, 
which indicates a plan, there is never any progress in 
the comprehension of the deed, there is none in the doer 
doing; each work-piece is also a master-piece, the first 
not less than the last. 

So far, the world of matter shows power, law, mind. 
Looking farther still, in the world of animals you find 
signs of benevolence, in their relations to the world of 
matter and to each other; but this power of benevo- 
lence is not very obvious at first sight. To the rude, 
uninstructed man it is not very obvious, and to the 
most scientific man there are still many things in the 
world of matter which he cannot clear up and reconcile 
with benevolence. Thus, there is much material vio- 
lence. In polar lands winter is horrid with frost; in 
tropic, summer is terrible with heat; and all the way 
between the air is often vexed with storms. There are 
thunder, lightning, earthquakes, volcanoes, now and 
and then a famine ; great geological convulsions destroy 
whole faunas and floras of animated and vegetable life. 



GOD IN MATTER 



263 



This power is directed by a mind which can destroy as 
well as create. Men's ferax, men's vorax. Then there 
is much animal violence. Each animal has his foe, his 
foreign enemy who springs on him from without; his 
domestic insurgent, who lodges in his skin and in his 
vitals. There are beasts of prey, birds of prey, fishes 
of prey, animals which devour live animals. It is so 
in all departments, — radiates, mollusks, articulates, ver- 
tebrates ; it has always been so, as far back as geologic 
record tells. Constructive and destructive forces march 
side by side, and the solid crust of the earth is the 
graveyard of millions of creatures, perished long ago. 
I do not attempt to deny these exceptions. Sometimes 
the destructive powers in nature seem to preponderate, 
and accordingly men bow before an evil God; and I do 
not wonder that even now the difficulty is not quite 
cleared up by science, and that the popular belief still 
is that there is absolute evil in the material world. But 
this let me say, that on the whole, as far as the world is 
understood, the power of benevolence seems immensely 
to preponderate; and not a single thing has ever been 
found which any philosopher has ventured to say was 
wrong, or did more harm than good. Earthquakes, 
volcanoes, hurricanes, tigers, lions, rattlesnakes, vipers 
— nobody has ever pretended that they did more harm 
than good ; the leaning of science is quite the other way, 
to suspect that what we call evil is good in reality, only 
not comprehended yet. There is no one thing found in 
the world on which a philosopher can put his finger 
and say, " It came from ill-will." That he leaves to 
theologians. The naturalist finds no devil anywhere; 
it is the theologian who finds him everywhere. 

What, then, does the world of matter tell us of, thus 
far? Power, law, mind. They are certain everywhere, 



264 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



at all times, power resident in the world of matter, law 
resident in the world of matter, mind residing there — 
three forms of God. Benevolence, also, but not so 
sure. I do not wish to claim anything which is unjust. 
I am not responsible for matter, nor for the proofs of 
God's character in the material world. I put down 
what I find, and only what I find. 

You will tell me, " Men of science, greatly your su- 
periors in everything, — students of nature, like 
Lalande, Laplace, von Baer, and Ehrenberg — have 
found no God in the world of matter; " and you will 
ask me why they found it not, and when they did not 
find it, why I dare say God is there. Here is my an- 
swer. The popular theology told them God has one 
special personal form, exists in one special, limited spot, 
whence he rarely intervenes — coming into the world 
of matter by miracle ; that he was present at the crea- 
tion of a world, of a new species, or a new geological 
epoch, and then withdrew and condensed his omnipres- 
ence into some special spot. The two astronomers said 
— " Our far-reaching glass penetrates wide space ; we 
find no special form of God. There is no spot which 
we cannot look straight through. If there is any such 
God as you tell us of he must be behind the most dis- 
tant nebulous spot seen in the constellation of Orion." 
The two naturalists said, " We have unrolled the stone- 
writ annals of the past, and they record no vestige of 
your God. There are 6 vestiges of creation,' but not a 
single foot-print of your deity in the 4 old red sand- 
stone,' a billion of insect corpses in a cubic inch of 
slate, but not a mark of your God." 

Let me ask the astronomers and the naturalists, " Do 
you find power? " " Power, immense, immanent power 
in every spot." " Do you find law? " " Law univer- 



GOD IN MATTER 



265 



sal, a constant mode of operation that never fails. 
Ubi potestas, ibi lex — where power, there is also law." 
" Do you find mind ? " " Mind ? The world is full of 
mind — power of force directed in constant modes of 
operation, by power of thought and will, to purposes 
calculated beforehand by knowledge that never fails, — 
mind's causal power, ever creating; mind's providen- 
tial power, preserving forever, that we find everywhere. 
Our telescopic eye beholds no spot but power, law, mind 
are there. We find no insect corpses so small but 
power, law, mind — causal, providential, continual — 
lodge therein. 4 Vestiges of creation ! ' — they are the 
tracks of power, law, mind, stamped into the rock of 
ages in all times past." 

" Do you find benevolence? " " Good-will we also 
find preponderating. No proof of ill-will; here with 
the microscope, there with our far-seeing telescopic- 
glass, nor now, nor then, nor here, nor there. All we 
understand is good, and only good. But there is evil 
which we do not comprehend. One day perhaps we 
shall, and find that also good ! " 

That is the answer which they give. See the works 
of these men, and you will find they answer all these 
questions. I have only translated their speech into 
yours and mine. 

The world of matter is the only witness for God 
which I put on oath to-day. This testifies of power, 
law, mind — these everywhere. But there are sad faces 
in this great family of living things which make men 
tremble. The heavens thunder, man fears, and falls 
down and worships the power, law, mind, which the 
world of matter tells him of. Alas! he kneels on the 
lamb's bones which some wolf gnawed the day before, 



266 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



and beneath him is a rock which records some geologic 
convulsion which ages ago swept off millions of living 
things. He trembles still, and turns off elsewhere for 
a world of love. Take the world of matter for what 
it is, not what it is not — love preponderates as a mil- 
lion over one. 

The whole universe of matter is a great mundane 
psalm to celebrate the reign of power, law, mind. Fly 
through the solar system from remotest Neptune to the 
sun — power, law, mind, attend your every flight. 
Study each planet, it is still the same — power, law, 
mind. Ask any little orange leaf, ask the aphis that 
feeds thereon, ask the insect corpses lying by millions 
in the peat ashes of the farmer's fire, the remains of 
mollusks which gave up the ghost millions of years be- 
fore man trod the globe, they all with united voice an- 
swer still the same — power, law, mind. In all the 
space from Neptune to the sun, in all the time from 
the silicious shell to the orange leaf of to-day, there is 
no failure of that power, no break of that law, no ces- 
sation in its constant mode of operation, no single error 
of that mind whereof all space is here, all time is now. 
So the world is witness to continuous power, never-fail- 
ing law, to mind that is everywhere; is witness to that 
ever-present Power which men call God. Look up and 
reverence; bow down and trust! 



3 



GOD IN THE WORLD OF MAN 

For the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of 
God. — 1 Corinthians ii, 10. 

Last Sunday we looked at the world of matter, to 
induce thence proofs of God, his being and character; 
and found therein power, law and mind directing that 
power, by means of that law, and its constant mode of 
operation, to certain purposes, which were never ill- 
willed, and in which benevolence preponderated. 
Power, law, mind, we found imminent in the world of 
matter ; not transient anywhere, but everywhere always. 
Proofs of benevolence we did not find so uniform in time 
and space, but yet preponderant; much not under- 
stood, but nothing ill-willed. From the world of mat- 
ter we could induce a God of power, law, mind, and 
partial benevolence. In all time and space we found 
the powerful and wise God, the benevolence preponder- 
ant, but not so sure. 

Let us look next at the proofs of God in the world 
of spirit, the world of man; and as we took the facts 
of observation to show us what the nature of matter 
tells us of God therein, let us now take the facts of 
consciousness to show what the nature of man tells us 
of God herein. 

An atom is matter and no more, existence in its plain- 
est form ; a crystal is matter and something more, mat- 
ter organized, material atoms plus organization; a 
plant is organized material atoms and something more, 
matter botanized, organization plus growth; an animal 

267 



268 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



is botanized organization and something more, matter 
vitalized, a plant plus life; a man is a vitalized plant 
and something more, matter spiritualized, an animal 
plus humanity. Now the material part of man, his 
body, is subject to all the conditions of other matter; 
it has the property of the atoms which compose it, of 
the crystals which form therein, and is subject to the 
laws of motion, vegetation, and animation. Therein, 
from the facts of observation, you find proofs of God, 
of power, law, mind, and partial benevolence, but they 
are the same in kind as what you gather from the world 
external to us; while, if you take the spiritual part of 
man, in which he differs from the world of matter, and 
examine that, studying the facts of observation which 
you see in other men, and the facts of consciousness 
which you feel in yourself, you may learn what the 
world of matter does not teach. The world of matter 
is one witness to testify of God; the world of spirit is 
another. Listen to the evidence from the facts of con- 
sciousness in your own experience and the experience 
of mankind. 

To begin, we must know what is me, and what is not- 
me. The philosophic term me expresses what I am, 
and the term not-me expresses everything else. The 
baby does not at first distinguish between his own body 
and the world of matter about him; he thinks that the 
bosom that feeds him is as much a part of himself as 
the mouth that embraces it, that the sun is his eye, a 
part of himself, as much as the eye, not understand- 
ing that the light is a foreign substance impinging 
thereon. By and by he begins to perceive the limits 
of his material personality, and separate the me of the 
body from the not-me of the body. You and I do not 
remember this process, but every thoughtful mother 



GOD IN MAN 



269 



has observed it in her child. He feels the rubber ring, 
the cradle quilt, which give back no response to his 
touch. With little thoughtfulness he grasps his foot; 
then there is a twofold sensation of touch in his passive 
foot and active hand, and he laughs at the discovery. 
He is perambulating the borders of his little municipal- 
ity. " The body, that is me," he concludes ; " the rub- 
ber ring, the cradle quilt, they are not me." At a later 
age we do the same with the part of us which is not 
material. After determining the body's limits, we at 
first confound the me of the spirit with the not-me of 
the spirit, the spiritual things about us. Thus we some- 
times claim as ours what is foreign, and yet oftener 
think that foreign and from without which is only a 
part of ourselves, a shadow of our spiritual personality ; 
for as the body is surrounded with material things, 
sensible to touch, taste, smell, the eye and the ear, so 
is our spirit girt about by things conceivable to the 
mind, the conscience, the heart and the soul; by, 
thoughts, ideas and spiritual influences, call them what 
you will. At first we do not clearly discern the bounds 
where we end and other spiritual things begin, and so 
we must make experiments to separate the spiritual me 
and the spiritual not-me. Some of you, perhaps, re- 
member when this process began in your consciousness ; 
perhaps it is not quite over with any one of us ; parts 
of other men's consciousness lap over on ours, and we 
mistake their thoughts for our own, mistaking our 
reputation, what others think of us, for our character, 
what we are ; and the reason is that we have not drawn 
the lines between our spiritual province and theirs. 
But here we commonly make a mistake just the oppo- 
site of the child's error. In babyhood we claim too 
much for our body, and in manhood often too little for 



270 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



our spirit ; and what is the result of our action we some- 
times take for the invention of a foreign thing. The 
ghost-seer really looks at his own fancy, but he thinks 
he sees a murdered man risen from the grave. Martin 
Luther threw his inkstand at the visible devil, and it 
hit Martin's own whim. Jehovah appeared to Jacob in 
a dream; that was Jacob's story; Jacob dreamed that 
Jehovah appeared to him, and that was the fact. St. 
Theresa and St. Brigitta think certain wise or foolish 
things, and then say, " The Virgin Mary, Jesus of 
Nazareth or the Lord God came and told them to us." 
There was no fact in the statement; it was only their 
foolish whim. Job Scott, with an audience of a thou- 
sand men, sits in his chair, waiting for the holy ghost 
to come ; an hour goes by, and no ghost appears ; at 
length he springs to his feet and pours out his tide of 
speech; he says it is the holy ghost speaking through 
him, but it is only Job Scott saying what George Fox, 
and William Penn and James Naylor said a hundred 
years ago, and what he has himself repeated a hun- 
dred times before, when the mood was on him and his 
genius brought it back. 

We all make this kind of mistake, and that fre- 
quently ; and I take it no man ever completely sepa- 
rates the me of the spirit from the not-me. We give 
outness to much which is really only inward in us, and 
hence comes the immense difference amongst men in 
matters of opinion. Much, too, of our idea of God 
is purely subjective, and comes from the worshipper's 
consciousness alone, and not from any fact of God. In 
the religious books of the six great world-sects, — Brah- 
manic, Buddhistic, Hebrew, Classic, Christian, and Ma- 
hometan, what different notions of God do you find! 
Three-fourths of what they teach comes from the 



GOD IN MAN 



271 



writers' defect; they confounded their own faults 
and imperfections with the facts of God. Thus the 
Old Testament makes God say, " Jacob have I loved, 
and Esau have I hated." This saying comes from no 
fact in God; he is not at war with Esau; it comes from 
the prophet's hatred of the Arabians, the national ene- 
mies of the Jews, and he put those words into Jehovah's 
mouth. But the Arabian prophet would have put dif- 
ferent words into his God's mouth, and he would have 
been represented as saying, " Esau have I loved, and 
J acob have I hated ; " when the fact was that the per- 
fect God hated neither, but loved both the hairy and 
the smooth man. 

The popular idea of the devil represents no fact in 
the nature of matter or in the nature of man, only the 
subjective feeling or thought of men who are not very 
wise nor benevolent. The council of orthodox ministers 
at North Woburn, 8 who refused to ordain a man as 
minister because he did not believe in the eternal damna- 
tion of babies newly born, think that God is a great, 
monstrous, ugly devil; but that idea represents no fact 
of the universe, only an ordained whim of the coun- 
cil. 

Now, as men do not know how far their spiritual 
personality reaches, and take their own follies or dreams 
for miraculous communications of truth, and thence 
make deductions, it comes to pass that in all these six 
great forms of religion God has been regarded as a 
limited being, imperfect, and often represented as ugly 
and malicious. Accordingly, men with great humane 
instincts or higher reflection refuse to accept such an 
idea of God, and suffer bitter consequences ; once in- 
quisitors burned them alive at Toledo or Madrid as 



272 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



atheists; now other inquisitors at North Woburn can 
only refuse to ordain them as ministers, not burn them 
at the stake. Other men finding that the God of the 
inquisitors has no existence, declare that there is no 
God at all. 

Thus men undertake to get an idea of God from 
the world of matter, and thence infer an almighty be- 
ing, who carefully plans out his work, does it, then 
withdraws, goes about something else ; but now and then 
returns to look after his work, to improve it, add this 
or take that away, to mend it, to tighten a nut or oil 
a bearing. That is about the idea of God which is 
taught by the common run of writers, from Paley to 
Agassiz. They do not introduce you to the power and 
mind ever present in the world of matter, acting by 
constant modes of operation which transcend the pres- 
ent fact. The reason is, these men confound their per- 
sonality with God, and put their limits on him; and 
from the world of matter brought back only what they 
carried there. I say this not to reproach the men who 
do this, but only to explain the fact and warn against 
the error. 

The same fault is still more common with men who 
take all their facts from their own consciousness. I 
have read no writer whose idea of God is not affected 
by his own character. It is not possible it should be 
otherwise, for our idea of God is the result of our whole 
character; and as no two of us feel alike, I take it no 
two can have exactly the same idea of God. Your and 
my idea of God is the measure of our growth, and 
shows how much we have become. Yet there is some- 
thing in our idea of God which corresponds to the fact 
of God. Last Sunday I spoke only of what is in the 
world of matter, — power, law, mind. I hope now to 



GOD IN MAN 



273 



give no whim of mine, but only such facts of God as are 
to be got from human consciousness. 

We are conscious of a feeling of dependence, and 
also an object upon which we depend, which at first is 
not distinctly understood, only felt, vaguely perceived 
by the instinctive observation of the religious faculty, 
the soul, which does not know at first how much is out- 
ward divine, and how much is personal soul. But at 
length by repeated observation and experiment of his 
mind, using the facts which the soul at first instinctively 
made known, man comprehends the divine object, knows 
how it affects his soul, finds out the constant mode of 
operation thereof, its effects, analyses that vague divine 
which the soul at first takes notice of, separates it from 
all else as a distinct divinity, and learns some of the 
phenomena thereof, and does this by his mind, using 
the facts which the soul at first made known, and thus 
at last knows by reflective philosophy what at first he 
only felt by instinct. 

Divide man's spiritual powers into these four, the 
intellectual, the moral, the affectional, and the religious. 
Now, each of these begins its action spontaneously, on 
its own individual account, without our will, fore- 
thought, or even foresight. Call that action in- 
stinctive, and the faculty thus acting call instinct. 
This instinct is as various as the faculties themselves, 
and so there are intellectual, mioral, affectional, and 
religious instincts. 

Now, our first spiritual act is a feeling of limitation, 
and so dependence, a general spiritual act. The first 
act of the religious faculty is a feeling of somewhat 
that we depend on, a feeling of God, a special act of 

the religious faculty. The first act of the intellect, 
1—18 



274 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



combined with the religious faculty, is the feeling that 
God is perfect, adequate to support what depends 
thereon. Each of these feelings is spontaneous, not 
caused by will alone; it is the intuition of the instinct, 
not an hypothesis of imagination, nor induction of 
reason. As the general spiritual faculty in its first 
instinctive activity gives us a primal feeling of depend- 
ence, and as the special religious faculty gives us its 
primal insinctive feeling of God, so also, combining 
therewith, does the intellectual faculty give us instinct- 
ively the feeling of God's perfection. In the logic of 
facts the feeling of God whom we depend upon implies 
the perfection of that God whom we depend upon, 
and in the psychology of intellectual consciousness one 
follows the other, stroke by stroke. 

This is a very nice matter, and should not therefore 
be trusted to the psychological analysis of the private 
consciousness of a single man, who may easily be mis- 
taken. But is not this the experience of you all? In 
your present reflective consciousness of God you con- 
ceive thereof as complete and perfect, and have a more 
or less definite idea of what qualities should make up 
that complete and perfect character. But take the 
earliest feeling of God that you can remember, and did 
you not even then feel him to be perfect, though you 
had no distinct conception of the special qualities which 
that perfection involved? If you had, it would not 
content you now; for as the child is less than the man 
so are the qualities which make up the child's con- 
sciousness of God less than what make up the man's 
consciousness of God. This perfection of God is com- 
mon to the child's instinctive feeling of God and the 
man's reflective idea of God. 

Starting with this instinctive feeling that God is 



GOD IN MAN 



275 



perfect, what comes of it? I am conscious of a power 
in me which is not me; I live and am, but am not the 
cause of my life and being. In my body I find forces 
which I do not control; my heart beats, my blood 
flows ; I do not cause it nor regulate it, nor can I 
prevent it. I breathe without thought; all day while 
I work, all night while I sleep, a current of air comes 
in and goes out, fanning the fires which warm my little 
earthen house; and that red sea of life ebbs and flows 
in every inlet of my body ten or twenty times a min- 
ute. There is a power of life in my body; I did not 
cause it; it is beyond my power, not subject to my 
caprice. It is a causal and providential power dwell- 
ing in me while I live. I reflect on this power of life 
in my body beyond my control, and I see it is part of 
the power of God, which is not only immanent in all 
the material world without me, but in every particle 
of my bones and flesh and blood. Now, as the intel- 
lectual instinct combining with the religious gave me 
the consciousness of God as perfect, I develop this idea 
of power under that category of perfection, and I come 
at last to this, that God is Infinite Power, Infinite 
Cause, Infinite Providence. There is no limitation 
thereof; it is power embodied. No other idea of God 
will satisfy my instinct or my reflection, for my nature 
demands the perfection of God. 

In the part of me which is not body I find other 
forces; spiritual faculties, which I do not control, but 
which control me. Look at these, under each of the 
four divisions of man's spiritual faculties. First of 
the mind; I must think, know, believe; but if I think 
what I will, I know and believe only what I must ; I can- 
not believe that to be true which I know to be false. I 



276 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



know that one and one are two ; I cannot believe it three ; 
I can control my tongue and call it three, my pen and 
write it three, but not my mind and believe it so. It is 
mine to think or think not. Here a certain latitude is 
left to my personal caprice, but the mode of thinking 
has been laid out for me. I find there are certain laws 
of mind, constant modes of operation for the thinking 
force, and they are superior to my personal will; I did 
not make them, cannot unmake them; they control me, 
and I have no control over them. That power which 
I find in my body I find also in my mind; as in my 
consciousness of body I find a rational world which is 
not me, so in my mental consciousness I find a mind 
which is not me, cause and providence to me no doubt. 
So I conceive of God as power of mind which is wis- 
dom ; and as the intellectual and religious instinct gave 
me the feeling of perfection in God, I develop this 
idea of God as mind after that category, and I come 
to this conclusion, that he is complete and perfect 
Mind ; there is no limitation thereof ; it is wisdom un- 
bounded, infinite wisdom, knowing what has been, what 
is, and what will be, complete and perfect power to 
invent, organize and administer. So God is Infinite 
Wisdom; no other idea of God will satisfy my mind. 
Is it not so with each of you? Admit the idea of 
mental imperfection in the deity, and you reject him 
at once ; he is no more the perfect God to us. 

I not only feel a mind in me which is not me, and 
feel dependent on that perfect and complete mind; but 
I feel accountable for my own conduct. I not only 
know things as true or false, fair or foul, useful or 
useless; but also as right or wrong. I am drawn to 
certain things as right, repelled from certain things as 
wrong; I have not only mental consciousness of the 



GOD IN MAN 



277 



true, the beautiful, and the expedient; but moral con- 
sciousness of the right, and the solemn word I ought 
comes to my lips. It is not " I must," the word of 
necessity, ; nor " I would," the word of desire ; but " I 
should," " I ought," the word of conscience, which is 
the motive to do right, and of will, the power to do 
right. Certain things seem right, and so obligatory 
on me. This depends not on my personal caprice; I 
cannot make right wrong, nor wrong right. There is 
a moral power in me, which is me, the power to know 
right and do duty ; but there is another moral power 
in me which is more than me, independent of me, which 
controls my moral consciousness, makes me know right, 
though it does not constrain my will and make me 
do right. This is the Higher Law, a statute enacted ; 
and it is also the Higher Law Giver, a perpetual stat- 
ute in the process of everlasting enactment. Here, 
then, is another quality of God. He must be moral 
power, as well as mental; the divine conscience which 
knows the absolute right, the divine will which com- 
mands the absolute right. Reflecting thereon, I de- 
velop that idea likewise to its uttermost; and I find 
that God is complete and perfect moral power, infinite 
justice, which knows the right, wills right, does right, 
is right. Nothing short of that infinite justice will 
satisfy my moral consciousness. A God who is just 
on all days but two, the day of man's fall from Para- 
dise, and the day of his condemnation into eternal tor- 
ment, is not the God for my moral consciousness; a 
God who is just to all save one single baby, whom the 
council of orthodox ministers at North Woburn is so 
anxious to damn, is not God enough for my moral 
consciousness. Can any one of you accept an idea of 
God who is not infinite justice, to know right, will 



278 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



right, do right, be right, at all times, in every place, 
to each man and each worm ? Surely, not one ! 

I find not only a mental and a moral faculty in me, 
but an affectional faculty also. I stand in diverse re- 
lations to men. Some I hate, some I am indifferent 
to, some I love. I hate these because they offend and 
do me harm ; I revenge the wrong they have done or 
scare them off from what they would do. It is only 
through fear, and for self-defence, that I hate my 
foe, — lion or murderer. I bear no ill-will to the rat- 
tlesnake in South Africa, only to the one in my path; 
and I feel no hatred to the pirate on the outermost 
ring of the planet Saturn, if pirate there be there. I 
am indifferent to men who stand in no relation to me, 
active or passive; they need not me, I need not them. 
Te Lee lives in Hong To in the Ming district, on the 
Yellow river in China. His father has bought him a 
wife. It is nothing to me how long her eyes are, or 
how obliquely set, or how short her feet. I can do 
nothing for Te Lee, he can do no more for me than 
the painted man on a tea-cup. I am indifferent to 
their marriage lot. But if I hear that my neighbor, 
Mr. Lovegold, aided by the British government, has 
grown rich by forcing opium on the Chinese, that the 
drug has found its way to Hong To, and that Te 
Lee has fallen a victim to the vice it engendered there, 
he is no longer indifferent to me. I pity him and his 
long-eyed wife, whose short feet do not allow her to 
provide for her newborn baby; I pity the little thing 
left by the Yellow river to perish, and would help them 
if I could ; and my heart of mercy reaches out to them 
twelve thousand miles away, while my arm of help can- 
not reach a yard. 



GOD IN MAN 



279 



I love such as come into pleasant relations with me; 
some I depend on for service or guidance, others de- 
pend on me. So I love them in various degrees. Oth- 
ers I regard for no service given or taken, drawn to- 
wards them by afFectional gravitation, and those I love 
with great outgoings of the heart, which has also 
thence its great income. Love is not merely grateful 
to repay or helpful to get. It 

"wanders at its own sweet will," 

and must go where it sends itself. As my power of 
affection enlarges, I love more men, each with a larger 
quantity and nicer quality of love. As a baby I love 
my mother, father, and nurse; then relatives and 
schoolmates; when a man I include my town, nation, 
Christendom, perhaps mankind. By and by my love 
runs over to wicked men, to the heathen and savage 
slave-trader in Africa, and to the Christian civilized 
slave-trader in South Carolina. When I am great- 
hearted enough, and fully grown in affection, I turn 
round and love my enemies, revengeful wrath giving 
place to benevolent mercy; and I feed the man who 
once sought to murder me. My wrath and power of 
hate was only given me for self-defence, and when I 
need it not it goes to sleep. So I have a new element 
which must enter into my conception of God. He 
must be affectionate; the God of power, wisdom, jus- 
tice, must be likewise a God of love. I develop this 
idea of divine affection. Can God hate me? He has 
no need to hate. I would not harm him if I could, and 
I could not if I would. He is almighty, and I have 
but little power. His almightiness is infinitely near, 
to help me; my weakness is infinitely far off from 
troubling God. He has no motive to hate me, to hate 



280 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



the worst of men ; for the worst of men is either a mad 
man or a fool, and could God hate either a lunatic or 
an idiot? The thought is blasphemy! If God can- 
not hate any, can he be indifferent to any? Certainly 
not. I may be indifferent to men who stand in no re- 
lation to me, but God is related to all ; his infinite pres- 
ence fills and surrounds all; as Infinite Cause he cre- 
ates all; as Infinite Providence works with all, in all. 
What power I have is derived straightway from God, 
and I derive my very existence this moment, and all 
moments, from him. I am weak, he made me so. I 
depend on him, he gives me the faculty whereby I 
recognize my dependence. He cannot be indifferent 
to me. It is plain from his nature that he must love 
me and desire my welfare. I may be the ablest or the 
feeblest-minded man, the best or the wickedest, still 
he must love me and wish my welfare; for neither the 
weakness of my nature nor the wickedness of my life 
can change the character of God or change his dis- 
position, any more than a fly on Neptune's farthest 
moon could arouse my feeble spite. Nothing can 
change his affection. 

I develop the affectional element of my idea of God; 
I lay aside all the personal limitations which make me 
indifferent to Te Lee, and wrathful against a lion or 
a murderer, all human limitations which set bounds to 
man's love for man; and I find that God must be com- 
plete and perfect affection, infinite affection, that he 
must regard me with all his infinite power of love, and 
not me alone, but every me that is or was or ever shall 
be; he must love each with all his energy and power. 
Will any other idea of God satisfy your affection? If 
he should hate only one out of ten hundred millions, he 
would not be the perfect God of love, and you could 



GOD IX MAN 



281 



not have faith in him. Could you ask God to hate 
and damn your worst enemies? Xo man could do it. 
It is only perfect love in God which satisfies this hu- 
man heart of hearts. 

X^ow, take the several elements of the divine which 
we gather from human consciousness — infinite power, 
infinite wisdom, infinite justice, infinite love — and put 
them into one being, and call that being Infinite God. 
I am as certain of his existence as of my own; every 
fact of my consciousness involves the existence of God. 
Am I conscious of myself as a fact, a deed done? 
That consciousness at once takes me back to the provi- 
dential cause of this deed done. Am I conscious of 
myself as a factor, a deed doing? That consciousness 
takes me back to causal providence, which is power, 
wisdom, justice, love, the Infinite Doer, whose power 
is in me as well as about me. I study the facts of ob- 
servation in the world of matter, and I find power, law, 
mind, ever present in every part of space. Shall I 
say God is matter? Xay, I know not the essence of 
matter, only its phenomena and some of its properties ; 
and the properties of matter are not God. I know no 
matter but body, and material body has the limit of 
space, with its here and there, while Infinite God must 
transcend space and be everywhere. Matter may be 
an attribute of God, eternal as God, its essence coes- 
sential with God; but matter is not God. 

Shall I say that God is spirit? I know not the es- 
sence of spirit, only its properties and phenomena ; and 
the properties of spirit are not God. I know no spirit 
but the human spirit, and that has the limit of time, 
with its now and then ; and Infinite God must transcend 
time and space, and be everywhere as ever here. Hu- 
man spirit is limited in power, wisdom, justice, love, 



282 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



while God is not only infinitely present in time and 
space, every then is now to him, and every there to him 
an eternal here; and he is also infinite power, wisdom, 
justice, and love. So I do not conceive of God as the 
materiality of impersonal matter, or as the spirituality 
of personal man; but as that substantiality which un- 
derlies the essence of matter and spirit, occupies both, 
every point of each, and at the same time transcends 
all. 

Is there an outward fact which corresponds to God? 
If I can trust my own consciousness, it must be so; 
for I am as certain of God as of my own conscious- 
ness. The eye is not more cognizant of light, nor 
the mind more cognizant of truth, than in my whole 
consciousness I am cognizant of God. Am I sure that 
God corresponds to my idea of him? He is the per- 
fect being, the infinite being; and it is only primary 
qualities of infinite perfection that I have ascribed to 
him. If I attribute to God any imperfection, any lack 
of justice, power, wisdom, love, then that comes of 
my consciousness, not God's character ; it is my finite 
dream of God's infinite fact. Infinite perfection as an 
idea in me has its cause as fact in the world about me 
and the world within me, and any imperfection must 
be in my conception of God, not in him. My charac- 
ter is the measure of my power to conceive of him, it 
is not the measure of God's fact, only my idea of 
God's fact. The boy's God is not the God of the man. 
A larger mind, conscience, heart, and soul recognizes 
other qualities of the Infinite. The higher I go up 
on my finite mountain of human privilege, the more I 
shall see of that infinite divinity which folds it con- 
tinually in light and shade. 

Such are the proofs of God which I find in my pri- 



GOD IN MAN 



283 



vate consciousness, in the metaphysicians' psychological 
way. With this experience, and its resulting Infinite 
God, I go to my nation or mankind, and with the 
naturalist's method I look over human history; and I 
find facts of observation to match my facts of con- 
sciousness, for mankind does in large what I do in 
little, and has also the feeling of God's perfection, and 
struggles for an idea which shall combine all the ele- 
ments of perfection, none of imperfection. So every 
people has its idea of God, which is the result of its 
history and the measure of its civilization. With the 
wild man and the savage, this idea is very rude. Then 
it becomes more elevated, then more. First, mere force 
contents man in his God ; then a little mind is added ; 
then more, and more yet; then justice is put there, 
then love. 

Mankind continually revises its idea of God, because 
it has the feeling that God is perfection ; and as it 
develops the feeling into an idea, the new result must 
be added to the divine being. Successively does Israel 
leave behind him the gods of Laban which Rachel 
stole, the gods of Egypt, the gold calf which Aaron 
made, the Canaanite and Philistine gods, and worships 
Jehovah, who loved Jacob and hated Esau. By and 
by he transcends that idea of God, and worships one 
who loves Jacob and Esau, too. So the Unitarian and 
the Universalist leave behind the trinity, that Cerberus 
of God, growling forever round his endless hell, and 
mankind fares on, asking for higher and higher ideas 
of God. 

I put it to you, individually, and I put it at this 
minute to the Jew, Gentile, Christian, Mohametan, to all 
thoughtful mankind, Will anything content you less 
than the Infinite God, of perfect power, perfect wis- 



284 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



dom, perfect justice, perfect love? And in all the 
tongues of earth does mankind answer, No ! 

Yea, with great groanings which cannot be ut- 
tered, the ten hundred millions of mankind cry out, 
" Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us ! Give us 
the infinite perfection of God! Sure of that, of 
all else are we likewise sure." In our own con- 
sciousness lies the evidence. To boy or savage the 
childish instinct gives a vague divine, but manly 
thought to manly men demonstrates the perfect 
God. 

To this high end the Bibles of all the nations have 
helped, writ in many a tongue — Vedas, Classics, 
Zendavestas, Old Testament, New Testament, Koran; 
nay, the idols help which Rachel stole, and the Canaan- 
ites or Philistines set up. The great philosophers have 
also helped mankind to an appreciation of the true 
idea of God ; those who wrote out the principles of na- 
ture, the mechanics of the sky, or revealed the won- 
ders long hidden in a bit of stone; they whose micro- 
scopic study is the human mind or whose telescope 
sweeps the whole sphere of man's past history, they 
who give us the metaphysical principles of human na- 
ture and write the celestial mechanics of man's devel- 
opment; they, too, who break in pieces the idols men 
have created, who destroy man's superstitious rever- 
ence for the Bibles of the nations, even they who mock 
at the hideous ugliness of the popular theology's idea 
of God. All these have helped mankind to the com- 
prehension of the dear God who is infinite power, wis- 
dom, justice, love and holiness, infinite cause and provi- 
dence, father and mother to every worm, to every 
child, to Jesus who speaks the world's great truth, 
to Peter who denied him, to Iscariot who betrayed, and 



GOD IN MAN 



285 



to those other Peters and Iscariots who still crucify 
him afresh and put him to open shame. 

The world of matter is witness to God. With one 
loud voice the flowers below and the stars above pro- 
claim to us power, wisdom, law. This little rose, in 
its cloth of gold, whispers to us benevolence; yonder 
sun whispers benevolence. But the world of spirit, 
the world of consciousness, tells us not only of power, 
law, mind, but of justice also, and of love. Matter 
gives us a God immense of power, law, thought; and 
mind gives us the Infinite God of justice likewise, and 
of love. 

" Here rest we, 
Nor need, nor can we any farther go." 



4 



GOD IN THE RELATION BETWEEN MATTER 
AND MAN 

Thou hast ordered all things by number, and measure, and 
weight. — Wisdom of Solo3Ion, xi, 20. 

I ask your attention to some thoughts on the evi- 
dences of God which are found in the relation between 
the world of matter and the world of man. The con- 
clusion reached in the two preceding sermons was the 
evidence of a being who is infinite perfection; having 
the perfection of existence, which is self-existence, — 
absolute, eternal being; the perfection of power, which 
is almightiness ; the perfection of mind, which is all- 
knowingness ; the perfection of conscience, which is all- 
righteousness ; the perfection of the heart, which is 
all-lovingness ; the perfection of the soul, which is all- 
holiness ; God immanent in matter and in man, and yet 
transcending alike matter and man, and the idea that 
man forms of him. 

Now, the infinite God must be perfect in his crea- 
tion and in his providence. That is to say, his motive 
must be perfect, a desire to bless; the universe, which 
is his work, must be a perfect manifestation of that 
motive. So far as the universe, at any one time, is 
a means to an end, an instrumentality of mediation, it 
must be the most perfect of all conceivable means; and 
so far as the universe at any one time is an end, a final- 
ity of purpose, it must be a perfect end. Of all con- 
ceivable ends it must be the best possible, a perfect 
realization of the desire to bless. This must be true of 
the universe taken as a whole, true of each of the two 

286 



MATTER AND MAN 287 



great parts thereof, the world of matter and the world 
of man, and true also of the relation between them. 

The infinite perfection of God cannot be inductively 
proved by a study of the facts of observation in the 
world of matter, for there is but small part of this 
world of matter which we know, and a small part which 
we thoroughly comprehend; and beside, if we knew it 
all, and comprehended it all, as that is finite, we could 
not thus induce the infinite perfection of its cause and 
its providence. But in the world of man, by an intui- 
tion of our own spirit, and as a fact of consciousness, 
do we find that infinite perfection, which is first an in- 
stinctive feeling, as I think, involved in the innermost 
fact of religious consciousness, but at length a philo- 
sophical idea, developed out of the substance of that 
instinctive feeling which involved it. So it not only is, 
at last, a demonstration of reflective science, but like- 
wise at first an intuition of spontaneous instinct. As 
that is so, so the perfection of the universe, of its two 
parts, and of their mutual relation, cannot be induc- 
tively proved by the study of facts of observation in 
matter, or of consciousness in man, because as yet we 
know but little of the universe, and comprehend that 
little but poorly, and are still more embarrassed by 
lack of knowledge and comprehension when we come 
to study the relation between the two; and therefore 
we must deduce the perfection of the universe from 
the perfection of its author; for it is not possible that 
an infinitely perfect God should make a world which 
was not the best possible of all worlds which are con- 
ceivable. 

Accordingly, starting from the infinite perfection 
of God, who must desire the best of all possible things, 
must know the best of possible things, must will the 



288 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



best of possible things, and must accomplish the best 
of possible things, at the last, this deduction follows: 
The world of matter in its nature must be perfect; 
that is, it must have come from a perfect motive, a 
desire to bless in the highest degree; it must be a per- 
fect means adequate to its purpose, and also it must 
be a perfect end, a realization of that desire to bless. 
In the same way it follows that the world of man in 
its nature must be likewise perfect, in the benevolence 
of its motive, the adequacy of its means, the success 
of its end. And this is true likewise of the relation be- 
tween the world of matter and the world of man; that 
relation must likewise be perfect in its motive, perfect 
as a means, and perfect likewise as an end. This con- 
clusion of the perfection of the universe is a transcend- 
ent truth, not dependent on your observation or mine, 
not to be disturbed by any facts which seem to con- 
tradict it ; but it is deduced straightway from the idea 
of the infinite perfection of God which is given in 
our consciousness. And after we have attained the 
knowledge of God as infinite perfection, either by in- 
stinct, as mam^, or by reflective demonstration, as a 
few, then we are so sure of its transcendent truth, that 
if we find any facts which seem to conflict therewith, 
we doubt if we have understood them aright, our 
knowledge of God's infinite perfection being so much 
more certain than our comprehension of famine, storm, 
earthquake, pestilence, and other seeming evils. This 
conclusion of the perfection of the universe follows 
directly from the perfection of God, and it will be 
admitted by every thoughtful man who has mind 
enough to comprehend it, excepting those who have 
gone astray through education in that vicious theology 
wherein most men, if not born, are at least bred. 



MATTER AND MAN 289 



But certain as is this perfection of the universe 
thus deduced, I do not like to rest the relation be- 
tween the world of matter and of man on this deductive 
and transcendent truth; for we want not only to know 
that this relation is perfect, but to know how it is per- 
fect. So in what follows I shall neglect that tran- 
scendent deductive conclusion altogether, and look di- 
rectly at facts as they are, and see what character of 
God they point to and hint at. 

The universe is the revelation of God in matter, as 
our idea of him is the revelation of God in human con- 
sciousness. In this way I asked you to look at the 
world of matter and the world of man, each by itself. 
Now let us look at the two in their mutual relation. 

Man is of two parts, matter and spirit ; he is an ani- 
mal and also an animal and something more. Now, as 
an animate body, he stands in a material relation to the 
world of matter; and as a human spirit he stands in a 
spiritual relation to the world of matter. For conveni- 
ence, I will divide this sermon into two, and speak first of 
the world of matter as related to man's body, and here- 
after of the world of matter as related to man's spirit. 
To make all clear, let us divide this cosmic universe, 
the world of matter, into two parts — the astronomic 
world, which is all the universe, except this earth, and 
the telluric world, which is the earth itself. Look first 
at the relation of man's body to the astronomic world. 

The earth is one of many bodies, — sun, planets, 
moons, comets, which make up the solar system; that 
is one of many solar systems, which make up the astral 
system; and that one of many astral systems which 
make up the astronomic system, the whole universe of 
matter. Now of the solar system we have much exact 
1—19 



290 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



and certain knowledge; of the astral system, less; and 
of the astronomic system, our knowledge is chiefly de- 
ductive, by mathematics, or inferential, by imagina- 
tion ; but in all parts of the astronomic world, great or 
little, so far as we have gone, we find power, law, 
mind. But as its immediate influence on our bodies is 
so slight, I shall pass over its relation thereto, and 
look now only at that part of it which we call the solar 
system. 

Our body stands in constant relation to that. For 
most things, we depend upon the earth; but for two, 
light and heat, we look elsewhere. Our heat comes 
from the sun wholly, with the exception of what we 
gather from the earth's central fire. The sun and 
moon afford us almost all our light, and as what she 
gives is borrowed from him, I shall set her contribu- 
tion down to his account. Man cannot live without 
this solar light and heat. See the arrangement by 
which the two are furnished him, and in their present 
proportions. A planet revolving about the sun in an 
elliptical orbit, and rotating on its own axis, draws 
other bodies to itself, with an attraction which dimin- 
ishes as the square of the distance increases ; so at a cer- 
tain distance on its outer or inner side the attraction 
of a planet ends, and that of some other body begins. 
So each planet has what may be called its attractional 
orbit. I mean a certain ring of space on each side of 
its track through the sky, where its influence prevails 
over other planets. The relation between the width of 
the planet's attractional orbit, and the time of that 
plane's rotation around its axis is uniform throughout 
the solar system. The square of the number of days 
in a planet's year always bears the same proportion 
to the cube of its attractional orbit's diameter. This 



MATTER AND MAN 291 



applies to the earth; the width of its attractional orbit 
not only determines the length of its year, but de- 
termines the number of times it shall turn round, and 
the number of days and nights it shall have in a year ; 
and on these two facts, the earth's distance from the 
sun, and the length of day and night, depend the 
quantity of light and heat which we receive, and like- 
wise the distribution of daylight and dark. 

Now there is an exact harmony between man's body 
and the amount of heat and light received by the earth 
in its present position. If the size of the earth's orbit 
were much changed, that harmony would be broken up. 
If it had the width of one of the exterior planets, say 
Jupiter, we should perish from lack of light and heat ; 
if it had the narrowness of one of the interior planets, 
say Venus, we should perish from excess of light and 
heat. So, if the size remained the same, and the shape 
were altered, we should be equally ruined. If its orbit 
were like a comet's, the earth now near the sun, and 
then removed to a great distance, the extremes of heat 
and cold would destroy our life. The same is true 
with regard to the harmony between's man's body and 
the diurnal change of light and darkness. If the 
earth revolved twice in twenty-four hours, man would 
perish through the swift return of day and night. 
If but once in forty-eight hours, he would perish by 
the tardiness of their return. Nor is that all. The 
weight of our bodies and the strength of our bone and 
muscle depend on the earth's attraction, and that is 
affected by the swiftness of its rotation. If it turned 
twice on its axis in twenty-four hours, our bodies 
would be unwieldly through lightness, and the air so 
thin we could not live by breathing it; if it revolved 
but once in forty-eight hours, our bodies would be so 



292 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



unwieldly heavy, that we could hardly creep ; no 
mother could hold her baby; our flesh would break 
our bones; and the air would become so dense that we 
could not breathe it in. Man's body stands in per- 
fectly harmonious relation with the annual quantity of 
heat and light, with its distribution in summer and 
winter, with the swift rotation of the earth and the 
moon, with the earth's attractive force which holds him 
down, and with the thickness of the air he breathes 
and lives upon; and all these things and this har- 
monious relation depend directly on the swiftness of 
the earth's rotation, and that on the width of her at- 
tractional orbit, that on the balance of forces between 
the earth and Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, 
Herschel, Neptune, Jupiter; it depends on the struc- 
tural character of the whole solar system which was 
fixed millions of millions of years before man ever 
trod the globe. The ease and grace with which a 
dancer whirls or a child runs and leaps or a man walks, 
the healthy condition of your eye, rejoicing in the 
light, the vitality of every breath you draw, depend 
thus intimately on the structural character of the 
solar system; our existence is involved in the width of 
the attractional orbit of the earth, and that is so in- 
timately woven up with the whole solar system that 
they all work together to support our little life. So 
much for the relation of man's body to the astronomic 
world. 

Now, see some facts in the relation of man's body to 
the telluric world. For all beside heat and light we 
depend on the earth alone. The solid earth is robed 
in an invisible atmosphere, which has remarkable prop- 
erties, and remarkable functions to fulfil. First, it 



MATTER AND MAN 293 



lets in the solar and astral light which, falling per- 
pendicularly, white-robed, goes straightway to its 
calorific and actinic work, 9 or, falling at an angle, it 
lingers by the way, and robes the earth in its morning 
and evening magnificence. Then this air lets in the 
sun's heat, and prevents the earth's from escaping, and 
so it is a mantle wrapped about the shoulders of the 
world to keep it warm. It thus helps to furnish these 
two conditions for the existence of vegetation and ani- 
mation, heat and light. It also directly supplies the 
breath by which all plants grow and all animals live, 
for with their little mouths always dumb in the vege- 
table world, and sometimes voiceless in the animals, do 
both suck the breasts of heaven, and take in the means 
of life. Besides it carries sound to the ear of man, and 
attractive or repulsive odors to the sense of smell, here 
guiding to his bliss, there warning from his bane. 
Heat, light, breath, sound, smell, are indispensable 
to the human kind ; and for all these five we depend 
upon air, which is perfectly suited to perform the five- 
fold function. Air is chemically composed of seventy- 
six per cent, of nitrogen, twenty-three per cent, of 
oxygen, one per cent, of aqueous vapor, and there is 
a little touch of carbonic acid. Now, of the sixty ele- 
ments 10 that make up the earth there are no other 
four that could perform this fivefold function which 
the air is given to perform, and there is no other com- 
bination of these four elements which could perform it. 

Man depends on the earth for four other needed 
things — food ; shelter against the elements and wild 
beasts, consisting of a fixed covering, — call it a house, 
and a movable covering, — call it a garment ; medi- 
cine, to heal him when he is sick or wounded ; and tools 
wherewith to procure him food, shelter and healing 



£94 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



medicine. See man's relation to the earth in respect of 
these four things. 

The earth, world of matter, is composed of three 
parts; the inorganic, which let us call the mineral 
world, the vegetable, and the animal. The mineral 
elements are the food of vegetables, vegetables the food 
of animals, and both animals and vegetables the food 
of man. There is such a sympathy between man and 
the elements about him that his food comes spontane- 
ously by nature, or else may be produced by human 
art and time in every place where the conditions of air, 
light, heat and moisture make it possible for man to 
dwell. From the earth, then, man derives his food; 
but the general power of the earth to produce food 
depends on the structural character of the globe, the 
distribution of its water, land, air, heat, light, the 
electricity therein, and on the chemical character of the 
soil. The mineral matter must be there as food for 
vegetation ; plants must assimilate that mineral matter, 
and therefore must have the requisite conditions of 
heat, light, and electricity; animals must appropriate 
the plants and furnish food for man. Mankind can- 
not live by vegetable matter alone, for though here 
and there a single individual may do so, nor suffer 
much, when you try the experiment with a people, gen- 
eration after generation, that people dwindles and at 
length will perish. So strike the beasts out of exist- 
ence and man will die. Human life rides on the 
beastly back, the animal lives on the plant, the plant 
on the mineral, and that depends on the great telluric 
chemistry by which the elements are mixed on so large 
a scale; and so this flesh and these bones of ours are 
intimately connected with the plvysical geography of 
the earth and the chemical structure of the great globe 



MATTER AND MAN 295 



itself. Were these conditions otherwise man could not 
live or be created. 

That is not all. Man lives by food, which must 
perform two functions. Partly it turns to blood, and 
helps build up the tissues of the body and repair their 
daily waste; let me call this the nitrogenic part. 
Partly our food turns to fuel, and keeps up the vital 
warmth; this call the carbonic part. Each day it 
takes some eleven ounces of charcoal to keep this hu- 
man engine fired up with active life. Now in high 
latitudes, the air about us is much colder than our 
bodies, and we need more food for fuel than in hot 
climates, where the air is more nearly of the tem- 
perature of the body. Now the human food which 
cold climates produce, both vegetable and animal, what 
comes spontaneously, and what is won by toil, contains 
more carbon than the food of hot tropical lands. The 
natural appetite of man follows the same rule; in 
arctic cold man desires fat, flesh and vegetable oils, 
while in tropic climates he favors nitrogenic food, and 
the date, the palm, and the plantain supply his de- 
sires. In Greenland the Esquimaux feeds on the seal, 
which furnishes the fat his appetite relishes, the train 
oil which his frozen body needs. In Bengal the Hindoo 
feeds through preference on rice, which contains less 
oil than any other grain which grows, and which he 
in his tropic climate does not need. Now Greenland 
bears the seal as naturally as India does rice; each de- 
pends on the climate, that on the shape and inclina- 
tion of the earth, those on the general structure of the 
solar system. Alter the relations a little, let seals 
abound in India, and rice and similar food be wanting, 
man would dwindle, and in a few generations die out; 
or, from Greenland take the seals and let rice abound, 



296 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



mankind's life would presently cease there; but the 
very structure of the earth, the chemistry of its soil, 
the temperature of its air and water, the amount of 
electricity and light, require seals in Greenland and 
rice in India. The fat dinner of the Esquimaux and 
the Hindoo's thin vegetable diet alike depend on the as- 
tronomic relation of the earth to the solar system. 
In this way the relation is fixed between man's body 
and the food he feeds on. 

Man wants shelter, a fixed house, and a movable 
garment. For the wild man there are holes in the 
slaty, the granitic or the limestone rock, and there are 
trees, whose shadow protects him from heat and great 
trunks from cold, and whose branches afford him a 
resting place safe from the tiger and the wolf ; and 
therein the New Guinea mother, with her baby in her 
arms, roosts throughout the night; no New England 
crow can house him better in our northern pine. 
When our wild man has got a little advanced and be- 
come a savage, he digs him a burrow in the earth, and 
his child is born in a grave; the hospitable earth being 
a cradle for new life, and not less a tomb for age 
and death ; or with sticks builds him a wigwam, hut, or 
kraal. Out of the clay pit, the forest, the mountain, 
the marble quarry, or the mine, enlightened man builds 
him his house or palace, comfortable for use, elegant 
for beauty. But the hole in the rock which the wild 
man finds, the ground which he digs, depends on the 
geological structure of the globe ; the hollow tree which 
took the old Sicilian in, the breadth of the boughs 
which hold the New Guinea mother up, depend on the 
law of vegetation whereby the trunk grows and the 
branches spread. And so the wood, brick, stone, mar- 



MATTER AND MAN 297 



ble or iron, which the enlightened man uses for his 
dwelling, depend on the very structure of the earth, 
its central heat and its position in the solar system, 
with such an attractional orbit, and such a rotation, 
day by day. 

So it is with the movable house which clothes our 
limbs. The wild man went naked as a worm. As soon 
as he needed nature offered him clothes, the vegetable 
its leaves, the animal its skin or fur. Look at this 
clothed congregation, and see whence all this vast ar- 
ray of handsome dress has been gathered up ! Part 
of it came from the backs of fur-clad, arctic beasts, 
which only polar cold can bear; the linen grew up 
from the cool temperate soil; tropic heat furnished the 
cotton ; and the little silk-worm has spun the substance 
of appropriate trees, which change their leaves to cov- 
ering for the Adams and Eves of civilization. Vari- 
ous colors, which more than imitate the rainbow, have 
been gathered from the mineral, vegetable and animal 
worlds; and all these depend directly on the structural 
character of the globe itself. As the rainbow is the 
child of the sun and cloud, nursed by lightning, waited 
on by gravitation, and girted into handsome shape by 
the spheric globe itself, so yonder bonnet, the triumph 
of the milliner's art and the wearer's taste, is daughter 
of vegetation and animation, grand-child of the min- 
eral world, which dowers it with such handsome hues, 
and in strict geologic descent, traces its aristocratic 
lineage back to the earth's attractional orbit, and the 
constitution of the solar system. A little change in 
that far-off ancestry, and there could not be a bonnet 
in Boston to-day, more than a woman to wear it, or a 
young man to look delighted on. 

Man wants medicine to heal what ails. Look at this 



298 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



need. The earth bears things fit for food and shelter, 
but also things unfit for either use. Man is finite and 
yet progressive; his development is by experience, and 
in that he may err, making mistake by the instinctive 
and spontaneous action of his faculties, or still more 
by his voluntary act; he may dwell in places not fit 
for health, feed on food not meant for him; he wan- 
ders more than any other animal, and encounters more 
peril, feeds on more various food, experiments in all 
directions, and is constantly running into difficulty ; so 
more than all other animals is he exposed to causes 
which would destroy the individual or the race. But 
on the other hand, to balance this dangerous peculiar- 
ity, more than all other animals he has power to ac- 
commodate himself to circumstances. If his mind is 
the most curious, his will the most obstinate and ag- 
gressive, and accordingly his body the most venture- 
some on earth, and so exposed to danger, yet his body 
is of all others most pliant. He can live in the equator 
of heat, and at the poles. Yet spite of this, so ven- 
turesome is he, man overleaps the bound, and more 
than any other animal is obnoxious to disease. Now 
against this there is a strange provision. Man, I 
think, is the only medicating animal. They tell stories 
of the toad, who furnishes himself with medicine for 
his bodily ills; I fear this is the poet's fiction, not the 
naturalist's fact. 

So provision is made for medicine. There are vari- 
ous poisons, — animal, vegetable and mineral, which are 
not food, but medicine. This quickens the action of 
the digestive powers, that retards it. One irritates the 
stomach or skin, the other quickens the action of the 
nerves. In the juice of the grape, the apple, of every 
fruit, in the hollow of the southern cane, in the seed 



MATTER AND MAN 299 



of every cereal grass which grows between the equi- 
noctial and the arctic line, there is a substance whence 
a fiery liquor can be made, of wondrous medicative 
power. In the bulb which holds the poppy's seed 
there is a sovereign balm, which takes away the smart 
of the wound and laps the sufferer in elysian dreams ; 
and in a little mineral there is a precious power to 
steal away the sense of pain and make the flesh sense- 
less as wood to the surgeon's medicative hand. The 
relation between these things and the sick body is just 
as nice as that between man's flesh and his food and 
shelter. So a margin of oscillation is left for man's 
body, and if it swing away too far, such is its power of 
accommodation it is not lost, and swings back; there is 
a power of medication in the world of matter to carry it 
back if it swings too far beyond the line of oscillation. 
Now, all these medicines, like man's food and shelter, 
depend on the constitution of the earth. They are in- 
timately connected with its place in the solar system. 
A change of the diameter of the earth's attractional 
orbit, and all these things would cease to be. 

Then, man needs tools. At first, his only instru- 
ment is his body ; his hand to grasp his food, his teeth 
to grind it. With these he begins his warfare against 
matter; but the world of matter furnishes him with 
weapons against itself. A stone is a harder fist, a 
stick is a longer arm, a horse is swifter legs. To the 
wild man the savage barbarian is civilized. The world 
of matter furnishes tools to procure for man food, shel- 
ter, medicine. There are beasts to till the field, tread 
the grain, turn the mill, and to furnish food, — milk 
for babes, meat for men. There are beasts to tend 
the flocks, the house; to carry burdens, slow, as the 



300 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



ox and the ass ; swift, as the dromedary, the horse, the 
carrier dove. There are animals to spin the silken 
thread. The sheep lends man his parchment, the 
goose his pen. There is fire, and the school of metals, 
which he masters and trains to work. There is glass 
to arm the sight for science's telescopic research or 
microscopic observation. There are winds which turn 
man's mill and winnow his grain; there is water, a 
road when still, when moving, spinner, miller, sawyer, 
weaver, joiner, smith. There is steam to carry man's 
burdens ; lightning to bear his thought. All these 
tools, from the chip of stone to the electric telegraph, 
depend on the structural character of the earth. Take 
away wood, iron, the ox, and the horse, how different 
were human history! An earth can be conceived that 
should not bear a single tool for man ; his fist could not 
be hardened, nor his arm lengthened. And what 
would man then be? Only a wild man; for the tool 
is the lever by which man takes a pry, as it were, over 
one part of matter, and lifts up the other, and makes 
it serve him. 

Study the world of matter, and there are many 
things whose use we know not now. Study man's 
body, and it has not a material need but what is 
wanted, is waiting there for him. It is so with the 
primitive wild man, who needs but food and shelter; 
so with the philosopher in London or Paris, who wants 
the microscope, telescope, bridges, railroads, electric 
telegraphs, balloons to sail the sky, a Great Eastern 11 
to fly upon the sea. It is so with the barbarian, the 
civilized, and all the way between. How things are 
related together in this great cosmic world! The as- 
tronomic system is nest for each astral system, the 
astral for the solar system, that for the earth. Here 



MATTER AND MAN 301 



mineral matter is nest for vegetation, both for anima- 
tion, all three are needed nest for man. There is 
air for his lungs, food for his stomach, light for his 
eye, heat for his body, sheltering house and dress, each 
for use, and beauty too; tools for his hand, a wonder- 
ful array of them, from the wild man's artificial fist 
of stone up to the great Leviathan, which, with winged 
speed, takes the wealth of an island and bears it across 
the sea; aye, to the electric fire which sends its certain 
word under the sea from London to New Orleans and 
back again, 12 " ere that Leviathan can swim a league." 

All these four things, — food, shelter, medicine, and 
tools, are to be had by thought and toil, the only 
money taken at God's great counter of the world. 
But man's muscle requires the toil, man's mind de- 
mands the thought; he needs toil and thought to disci- 
pline his own body and mind, he needs them also for 
what they bring, and God has established a most per- 
fect relation between the thought and toil which man 
needs, and the needed things which they, and they 
alone, produce. In cold lands man needs more work of 
thought and toil than in warmer regions, and more 
of both is required to produce the things his body 
needs for food, shelter, medicine, and tools. 

So far, then, we have perfect harmony in the rela- 
tion between matter and man. But there are disturb- 
ing elements in the world. In the world of animation 
there are aggressive beasts, from the invading lion to 
the parasite and vermin, which invade man's home and 
body and prey on him ; in the vegetable world, there are 
poisons that destroy human limb and life; in the world 
of inorganic matter there are storms, hurricanes, light- 
ning, thunder, pestilence that rides on the air, death 



302 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



following behind; there are tempests on the water 
which drown the sailor, deluges which flood the lands- 
man's field and house. Poison metals are in the mine; 
the great central fire of the earth breaks out in a vol- 
cano or earthquake, which desolates whole provinces; 
sickness and death untimely show that man and his 
circumstances do not always fit. All animals are mor- 
tal, man most of all. But such is the preponderant 
weight of the perfect adaptation of matter and man, 
that where there seems to be a break, the analogy of 
the whole would force us to conclude that we do not 
comprehend that special part wherein that fitness seems 
to fail. 

And the fact that there is pain in the world of man, 
which, while it serves the race, has no compensating 
benefit for the sufferer here, is a clear indication that 
pain has another function for the part of man which is 
not material, but spiritual. It points to a hereafter, 
and one for beasts, not less than man; for as here on 
earth man's body seems to have been brought to its 
present condition, and made the fitting habitation for 
a master mind by many transmigrations through in- 
ferior beasts, which keep him company still and attend 
his march, so, I doubt not, it will be in that other 
world; and you and I may think, like the Indian, that 

"Admitted to that equal sky 
Our faithful dog shall bear us company." 

Take mankind as a whole, the world of matter as 
a whole, their relation is perfect in all we understand. 
Nature to man is a perfect nest, and we cannot conceive 
of a world of matter that should fit man better in any 
particular, and that in all stages of his existence, 
from primitive wildness up to the culture of to-day. 



MATTER AND MAN 303 



Do not think man alone is looked after by the world of 
matter. Nature is mother to every child, and not a 
stepdame to anyone ; every animal — vertebrate, mol- 
lusk, articulate, radiate — is placed not only in the 
same harmonious relation to the world of matter, but is 
just as much an object of protection as imperial man. 
The oyster has his little nest of conditions and cir- 
cumstances which is just as adequate for him as this 
vast telluric, solar, astral, astronomic world which fits 
the physical and spiritual frame of man. 

Put all these things together, and what character 
of God do you thence induce? Everywhere do you 
find power, law, mind; and benevolence is so predomi- 
nate that you believe it to exist where you cannot per- 
ceive it. And when ghastly facts like the storm, earth- 
quake, pestilence or famine stand before you, you say, 
" Surely this has a meaning which we do not know." 
And when you come to study these apparent evils and 
their relation to the earth and man, just as you under- 
stand that, you find they also are serviceable to the 
human race and could not be dispensed with; and 
what the individual suffers uncompensated here he 
shall find his account for elsewhere at a future time. 

See on how vast a scale this mind has planned in 
time and space. This room is eighty-five feet wide. 
It would take five hundred thousand rooms like this to 
reach across the centre of the earth, and twenty-four 
thousand of the earth's diameter to reach across her 
orbit. If Neptune be the farthest planet from the 
sun, it would take more than thirty diameters of the 
earth's orbit to reach across the solar system from side 
to side. Such immense distances we do not easily 
grasp ; but if a railroad engine travelled one hundred 



304 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



miles an hour, it would take more than five hundred 
years to travel that space. And that vast space is 
nothing to the distance to the nearest star, which is 
more than nineteen million millions of miles away ; and 
that distance is a dot compared to the distance of the 
remotest nebula. 

You and I are related to the earth, which is our 
nest. The mind which fashioned it made room for 
you and me therein. The earth is related to the solar 
system, so mighty wide. The mind which planned 
that made room for the earth. The solar system is 
related to the astral system, whereof Sirius is our next 
neighbor. The mind which planned that system made 
room for the solar system, for unity of plan runs 
through the astronomic system of the universe, and 
appears in every part; in the vast conception of the 
universe of space, through the astral system, the solar 
system, and the earth itself, its water and land, its 
power of motion, vegetation, animation ; and then man, 
who stands in such intimate relation with it all that 
were the solar system other than it is man could not 
be. Thus far off in space did the divine mind, using 
the power of matter, by a constant mode of operation, 
work for this beneficial result. 

My little sermon lasts an hour. The average age of 
this audience is perhaps some forty years ; perhaps 
the human race has been on the earth a thousand times 
as long. 13 Well, forty thousand years is not so large 
a proportion of this earth's existence as my hour's 
sermon is of mankind's existence. But, as Sirius is 
far from the earth in space, so far from you and me 
in time is the beginning of the material history of the 
earth, which the geologist finds written in the sacred 
codex of the world — the Old Testament of God, writ- 



MATTER AND MAN 



305 



ten by him in tables of real stone. Yet, in that far 
time, many millions of millions of years away, was 
mind controlling the power of matter, by a constant 
mode of operation to this end, to man, — and his rela- 
tion to matter was provided then. The size and shape 
of the earth's attractional orbit was then fixed; the 
time of day and night, the constitution of the air, 
which lets the solar heat and light come in ; the provi- 
sion for food, shelter, medicine and tools, was all so 
fixed that it was sure to come, each in its proper time, 
— the stone fist for the wild man, and for the enlight- 
ened the electric telegraph which runs beneath the 
sea. 

In all that space and time there is no cessation of 
power, law, mind, whereof its records tell; God im- 
manent always, not once withdrawn. And in that 
mighty space, that immense of time, there is not the 
record of a single miracle or departure from law. 
God, ever present, never intervenes ; acting ever by 
law a miracle becomes needless, and also impossible. 
Look at all this in its vast greatness in time and space, 
then consider the delicacy of that providence, and see 
how nicely the eye is fitted to light; and how this 
mighty space and this immense time are so with deli- 
cacy filled up; and then, if it is power, law, mind, 
which moves our astonishment at first, the deeper sec- 
ond thought is the love which animates that mind to 
use that power, and by that law achieve the blessing 
which the motive of God at first desired — the blessing 
for you and me and every living thing. Forego that 
transcendent truth of the perfection of the relation of 
matter and man, which I deduce from the idea of God 
as infinite perfection, and the very fact of that rela- 
tion leads us to infer, not only power, law, mind, but 
1—20 



306 MATTER AND SPIRIT 

that dear love which sends the sun so sweetly round 
the world — 

" From seeing evil still educing good, 
And better thence again, in infinite progression." 



5 



THE WORLD OF MATTER AND THE SPIRIT 
OF MAN 

For by the greatness and beauty of the creatures propor- 
tionally" the maker of them is seen. — Wisdoji of Solomox, 
xiv, 5. 

Last Sunday we looked at the relation of the world 
of matter to man's body, and the evidences of God's 
character contained in that relation. Let us look 
now at the relation of the world of matter to man's 
spirit, which like his body is closely related thereto. 
Look first at some of the facts of this spiritual rela- 
tion, and to understand the matter clearly, divide man's 
faculties into these four — the intellectual, the moral, 
the affectional, and the religious, and see how the world 
of matter stands related to each. 

Man depends on the telluric world for food, for 
shelter — including house, garment, warmth, orna- 
ment, — for medicine, and for tools. These do not 
come to him spontaneously, with no effort of his, as do 
light, heat, breath, sound, smell, which the air of its 
own accord provides for him. They depend on the 
exercise of man's volitional powers, on work, which is 
of two parts, toil and thought, both of which are 
necessary to man's bodily life. There must be art, 
which is the use of means for an end; and science, 
which is the knowledge of principles, of universal laws. 
Toil, tending to art, thought, producing science, are 
indispensable to man's progress, or even his welfare; 
without some humble form of both it is not possible for 
man to possess a tool, medicine, shelter, or even food. 
Now while the world of matter is fashioned so that it 

307 



308 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



furnishes man what he needs on these conditions, the 
nature of man is such that his thinking faculty grows 
stronger by every natural thought, and his power of 
work increases by all natural toil. Here man differs 
from the beasts. I will not say that he differs alto- 
gether in his spiritual faculty from the beasts, for as 
I cannot explain the facts of consciousness which I 
feel in me on the supposition that I am nothing but 
bones, brains, nerves, blood and the like, no more can 
I explain the facts of observation which I see in the 
horse, the dog, the elephant, or the crow, on the sup- 
position that these creatures are merely blood, bones, 
nerves, and brains; but they differ from man in this, 
that they are stationary in power of toil and thought; 
the last can work no more and enjoy no more than the 
first ; while you and I are progressive in our toil and 
thought, and in the enjoyment that we find in the art 
and science that come from both. 

See how man by toil and thought grows up. First 
the wild man lives on what spontaneous nature allows 
him, the fruits which grow over his head, the roots 
which grow under his feet, and what the waters offer 
of their own accord; but he must learn where these 
things can be found, and that demands observation, at- 
tention, memory, and travel from place to place. He 
must seek refuge from the storm, or hide him from 
the great beasts which would else devour him; and to 
do this he must think a little. Instinctive hunger com- 
pels the elemental thought; even the wild man must 
have a little wisdom to season his food; he makes his 
poor wild mind serve his body, and by doing this age 
after age, he grows up to a higher stage of develop- 
ment. Then, next, the savage man, which he has grown 
up to, is a hunter; he does not wait for nature to pro- 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN 309 



vide for him, he goes out and runs down his own prey, 
and though the lion, the tiger, the anaconda, and the 
bear are more than a match for his brute body, the bull 
stronger, and the deer swifter than he, yet, under the 
tutelage of hunger and fear, he studies in the primary 
school of nature, where his lesson is only to gather what 
this school dame spontaneously throws down for him;. 
At length he graduates thence, and goes on to higher 
lessons, and runs out to catch what nature sets on foot 
before him. The knowledge he gains is power to trap 
the bull never so strong, to catch the deer never so 
swift; no bird is too airy in its flight, no fish too slip- 
pery in its ooze, for him to catch and hold ; and, armed 
with bow and arrow, he is soon master of the tiger, the 
lion, the anaconda, and the bear. By this form of toil 
and thought he grows up higher still; our savage be- 
comes a barbarian, and cultivates the ground, no longer 
waiting for nature's spontaneous and too uncertain 
bread; no longer a mere hunter feeding on what he 
catches in the woods, he tames and domesticates the 
animals, who serve him with their flesh, fleece, skin, 
watchfulness, speed and strength. The barbarian has 
become a herdsman and farmer. But his work must 
be in thought as well as toil, not only an art but a sci- 
ence ; and so by the discipline of this great polytechnic 
institution of the material world he grows up higher 
and higher to the successive stages of half civilized, 
civilized, enlightened, and so on. Now, man's ability 
to pass from that state of primitive wildness in which 
he was cradled, and ascend to the enlightened condition 
of New England to-day, depends on the fact that there 
is a harmonious relation between man's mind and the 
world of matter. Material nature is so adapted to the 
necessity of the wild man that he has food and shelter 



310 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



only on condition of toil and thought; and the amount 
of toil and thought requisite to secure him food and 
shelter is, in all climes save the arctic, just enough to 
develop his body and mind, and to raise him to higher 
and higher degrees of civilization; so by that adapta- 
tion the wild man becomes the savage, the savage be- 
comes the barbarian, the barbarian becomes half civil- 
ized, civilized, enlightened, and so on. 

Now the relation which secures this human progress 
depends not only on the spiritual powers of man, but 
on the material powers of nature, on the world of ani- 
mation, vegetation, mineralization ; that depends on the 
structure of the earth, the distribution of its three great 
parts, land, water, air, on heat, attraction, affinity, 
light, electricity ; these depend on the length of the 
day and night ; that depends on the width of the earth's 
attractional orbit; that on the form of the solar sys- 
tem; that on the astral system, whereof it is part, and 
that probably depends on the great astronomic sys- 
tem, the vast cosmic universe itself. So a little change 
far off in the remotest nebula, which the astronomer can 
discover with his glass, might have made it impossible 
for man to develop his mind here, and advance from 
age to age. 

But this relation of matter to man's mind is so im- 
portant I do not like to leave it with these few gen- 
eral remarks, which some of you may question, because 
they depend on facts so remote from the experience of 
us all, familiar only to be reading of the fewest few. 
So look at some of the details on a smaller scale, at con- 
crete facts which come close home to every man's ex- 
perience, and which no man can dispute who has an 
eye or any thought. 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN 311 



Man's intellectual faculties may be distributed into 
these three — the understanding, the practical power, 
which seeks economic use as end ; the imagination or 
poetic power, which seeks ideal beauty as end ; and rea- 
son, the philosophic power, which seeks scientific truth as 
end. Look at the relation of the world of matter to 
each of these three faculties here in New England. 

First of the understanding. The business of almost 
every man and woman is to obtain food, shelter, medi- 
cine, and tools to help acquire these three things; di- 
rectly or remotely the understanding of all men is de- 
voted to this business; industry would acquire these, 
and charity distribute to whoso could not else obtain 
them. Now not only does the world of matter con- 
tain the substances necessary to feed, clothe, shelter, 
heal and serve us, on condition of toil and thought, 
but it furnishes them in such a way that the effort to 
procure them continually educates, strengthens and re- 
fines the people's understanding; toil becomes more and 
more elevating, thought strengthens the faculty to 
think, and there takes place that increase of welfare 
which we call progress. See how much more power 
we have over the material world than our fathers had 
only two hundred years ago, as appears in the present 
superiority of food, shelter, medicine and tools. Two 
hundred years ago the newly settled Saxon, dependent 
on the savage soil of New England, fared on the rudest 
food, the precarious products of the chase, the spon- 
taneous wealth of the seas; they had no fruit but a 
few berries, some nuts which the stingy soil afforded; 
their farming gave them Indian corn, pumpkins, beans, 
artichokes; some little of the European grains which 
a thousand years ago our Teutonic fathers brought 
from the central lands of Asia, and which since have 



312 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



been distributed in civilized lands all round the world. 
Such was the food of 1658, often scanty in bulk, al- 
ways coarse in kind. Consider the food of New Eng- 
land now; the grains, the fruit, the flesh, the produce 
of many a clime. So it is with the shelter. Their 
homes were extremely rude, open and thin, hot in sum- 
mer, too cold in winter. The few which are left from 
the old time show how slender was our fathers' power 
over the world of matter ; yet our fathers had a stronger 
tendency to grandeur than have their sons to-day. 
They were ill-clad, and in 1658, half the men who as- 
sembled for religious service on the last Sunday in 
January were half dressed in leather; and yet there 
were more towns in New England than there were pairs 
of boots ; there was not an umbrella, nor a water-proof 
coat, nor a water-proof shoe in all the land. How 
slender was the stock of cotton, linen, woolen goods. 
Yet our ill-clad mothers were dressier than we. The 
women of 1658 went to such extremes with their poor 
finery that not only the preachers scourged them with 
terrible whips out of the Old Testament, but the Great 
and General Court made laws to restrict the women's 
" wide-spread ruffs." How rude was the art of the 
surgeon, the dentist, the doctor, and how painful were 
the remedies for bodily ills, and though applied with 
such heroic vigor by the Samsons and Goliaths of the 
art medicative, they were powerless against the dysen- 
tery, the fever, the smallpox, and other terrible mala- 
dies, which were inferred to the wrath of God ; and the 
patient was left with his minister to face disease, with 
no aid save fasting and prayer. Contrast their condi- 
tion with ours, and see what a vast improvement has 
taken place ; consider the food of New England to-day, 
its variety and abundance; the more comfortable and 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN 313 

elegant houses in which men are sheltered; the great 
advance which has been made in the medical art; see 
what has been accomplished by vaccination, by, the 
power of ether ! The average life of New England men 
is longer now than it was two hundred years ago ; more 
babies will be children, more children youths, more 
youths will be men and women, and they will live more 
years. The same progress is seen in regard to the 
tools of every description, for the farmer, joiner, smith, 
spinner, weaver, seamstress. Look at the many instru- 
ments which lighten the farmer's work of ploughing, 
sowing, threshing, winnowing; at the machines for saw- 
ing, planing, turning, doing all manner of cabinet and 
carpenter's work; see how the river becomes a black- 
smith, spinner, weaver; look at the sewing machine, 
which is many a " Dorcas society " done in iron and 
wood ! Now whence comes it that man has such greater 
power over matter as is shown in his superior mode of 
feeding, sheltering, healing and serving himself? There 
has been no change in the world of matter, in any of its 
powers; but man's understanding has been directed to 
economic use, seeking food, shelter, medicine, tools ; and 
such is the relation between that understanding and the 
world of matter which it acts upon, that the understand- 
ing continually grows more and more, and acquires 
gi eater and greater control over this subject-world of 
matter. By this harmonious relation the power of New 
England's thought and toil has been so much greatened 
in two hundred years that ten thousand working-men of 
all sorts, working with the tools of 1858, can in an 
hour do more than ten thousand men in 1658 could have 
done with their tools in fifteen hours. I think two 
thousand babies which shall be born in Massachusetts 
this year will live as long as twenty-five hundred babies 



314 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



born in Massachusetts two hundred years ago. This 
progressive development of the understanding, with its 
consequent dominion over the world of matter, and the 
increase of working power dependent thereon, with its 
lengthening out of human life, comes from that har- 
monious relation which is established between this world 
of matter without us and this understanding throned 
within the human brain. 

Now the world of matter affects likewise the imagina- 
tion; it offers us beauty. How handsome are the com- 
mon things about us ! The trees, 

" Their bole and branch, their lesser boughs and spray, 
Now leafless, pencilled on the wintry sky " — 

or the summer trees, with their leaves and flowers, or 
their autumnal jewels of fruit, — how fair they are! 
Look at the grasses whereon so many cattle feed, at the 
grains, which are man's bread; and note their hand- 
some color and attractive shape. Walnuts, acorns, ap- 
ples, grapes, the peach, the pear, cherries, plums, cran- 
berries from the meadow, chestnuts from the wood — 
how handsome is all the family, bearing their recom- 
mendation in their very face! The commonest vege- 
tables, — cabbages, potatoes, onions, crooked squashes, 
have a certain homely beauty, which to man is grace 
before his meat. Nothing common is unclean. Then 
there is the sun all day ; the light, shifting clouds, 
which the winds pile into such curious forms ; all night 
the stars, the moon walking in brightness through the 
sky, — how beautiful these things are ! Then what 
morning splendor waits upon and ushers in the day, 
and attends his departure when his work is done ! The 
world of matter — what a handsome nest it is ! How 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN 315 



our eye cradles itself in every lovely rose; and all the 
earth blossoms once each year! 

How shape and color fit our fancy, and stars so far 
off that their distance is inconceivable, impinge their 
handsome light on every open eye ! What delight these 
things give us, a joy above that of mere use! Even 
the rudest boy in Cove street looks up at the stars, 
and learns to wonder and rejoice, and is inly fed. Set 
him down on the seashore next summer, and how the 
beauty of its sight and sound will steal into his rude 
untutored heart as the long waves roll toward the land, 
comb over and break with " the ocean tide's immeasur- 
able laugh!" With what joy will he gather up the 
refuse which the sea casts upon the shore, — the bright 
colored weeds, the curiously-twisted shells, the nicely col- 
ored pebbles, worn into so fair and elliptical a shape and 
polished off so smooth. Thus material nature comes 
close to the imagination of mankind, even in the rudest 
child. No North American savage but felt his heart 
leap at the bright sparkling water of the river, or the 
sunny lake, or the sublime majesty of the New Hamp- 
shire mountains ; and in the handsome names which he 
gave them has he left a monument of the intimate re- 
lation between his imagination and the world of mat- 
ter, which he felt and recognized. This passing de- 
light in nature's beauty helps refine and elevate all men. 
The boy who puts a dandelion in his button-hole, the 
girl who stains her cheek with wild strawberries in 
June, — seeking not only to satisfy her mouth with their 
sweetness, but to ornament her face with their beauty — 
are both flying upward on these handsome wings. 

But man is so in love with the transient beauty of 
nature that he captures it, and seeks to hold it forever. 
He puts the sound of nature into music, which he re- 



616 MATTER AND SPIRIT 

cords in the human voice or in wooden or metallic in- 
struments ; he paints and carves out loveliness on canvas 
and in wood and stone. Patriarchal Jacob is in love 
with the rainbow, and so puts its colors into Joseph's 
coat to keep nature's beauty, while he also clothes hand- 
some Rachel's first-born and longed-for boy. Thought 
commands toil, and bids it preserve the precarious but 
precious beauty which the world of matter so lavishly 
spreads out on earth in flowers, or scatters over the 
" spangled heavens " in stars. Man is uplifted and 
made better by this effort. When you find an Ojibway 
Indian with one stone copying the form of a blackbird 
upon another, depend upon it he is setting up a guide- 
board whose finger points upward to civilization, and 
the tribe of Ojibway s will travel that way. Thus 
closely following the male arts of use come the feminine 
arts of beauty — painting, sculpture, architecture, 
music, and poetry. " They weave and twine the 
heavenly roses in the earthly life ; they knit the gladden- 
ing bond of love which makes us blessed, and with the 
chaste veil of the graces, watchful, with holy hand, they 
shelter the eternal fire of delicate feelings." So nice is 
the relation between the world of matter and man's im- 
agination that beauty, which is our next of kin on the 
material side, helps us up continually, takes us to 
school, softens our manners, and will not let mankind 
be wild. The first house man ever entered was a hole in 
the rock, and the first he ever built was a burrow 
scooped out of the ground. Look at your dwellings 
now, at the Crystal Palace, the Senate house at Wash- 
ington, at these fair walls, so grateful to the eye, so 
welcome to the voice of man! Man's first dress, what 
a scant and homely patch it was ! Look at the orna- 
mental fabrics which clothe Adam and Eve to-day in 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN 317 



such glory as Solomon never put on ! Consider the art 
of music, which condenses all nature's melodious sounds ! 
Man's first voice was a cry; to-day that wild shriek is 
an anthem of melody, a chain of " linked sweetness long 
drawn out." Consider the art of the painter and the 
sculptor, who in superficial colors, or in solid metal or 
stone, preserves some noble countenance for many an 
age; and a thousand years hence eyes not opened now 
shall look thereon, and be strengthened and gladdened. 
From this intimate relation of the world of matter to 
man's imagination come the great sculptors, painters, 
architects and musicians, yea, the great poets, — Shake- 
speare, Milton, and their fair brotherhood and sister- 
hood of congenial souls — softening the manners of 
man, and inspiring his heart, all round the many-peo- 
pled globe. 

Now see on how nice an arrangement this relation 
rests. Matter furnishes food, shelter, medicine, tools; 
and the pursuit of these educates the understanding, 
which man did not ask for, and wisdom which he did 
not hope to have is thereby thrown in. But along with 
food, shelter, medicine, tools, which man must have, 
there is beauty also, which is food for the imagination, 
shelter, medicine and tools for subtler needs. This 
gives also a higher education to a nobler faculty. 
Beauty does not seem requisite to the understanding 
alone, it is not valuable to man's mere body, certainly it 
does not seem necessary to the world of matter itself; 
but it is a requisite to the imagination, and this thread 
of beauty, whose shape and color so witches us, runs 
through all the cosmic web; it is tied in with the subtle 
laws of animation, vegetation, motion ; it is woven up 
with attraction, affinity, heat, light, electricity ; it is 
connected into the disposition of the three great parts 



318 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



of the earth, — air, water, land, complicated with the 
special chemical character of each; it depends on the 
structural form of the earth, that on the solar system 
itself. So when you rejoice in a musical sound, in the 
sight of flowers, in the bloom on a maiden's cheek, 
when you look at a charcoal sketch or a bronze statue, 
when you read a drama of Shakespeare, or listen to an 
essay of Emerson — then remember that the relation be- 
tween matter and mind, which made these things pos- 
sible, depends on the structure of the solar system, and 
was provided for millions of millions of years before 
there was a man-child born into the world. So much 
for matter's relations to the imagination. 

Now the world of matter jostles the reason or philo- 
sophic power. We would know the law of things, the 
constant mode of operation, the causes of things. We 
would not only have use for the understanding seek- 
ing food, shelter, medicine and tools, not only beauty 
for the imagination building up music, poetry, architec- 
ture, sculpture, painting; but the nature of man re- 
quires truth for the reason, which seeks for science and 
builds up philosophy. Now the world of matter is so 
related to man's reason that presently the science comes. 
At first the variety of nature puzzles the rude man, 
all seems confusion; but soon it is found that there is 
order in this confusion. The perpetual return of day 
and night, summer and winter, flower-time and seed- 
time, impresses man with the regularity of the world of 
matter. He finds there is law everywhere, a constant 
mode of operation, and a plan for all. He looks at the 
moon, her beauty drawing his savage eye. At first its 
changes seem inconsistent, but soon he finds the change 
is regular; in four weeks each shape it has assumed is 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN 319 



repeated; and every few years all forms of eclipse come 
back again. He sees there are stars wandering amid 
the other stars, but presently finds there are limits to 
their wanderings, that there is a law which directs their 
course, and their movements are regular. Nature 
rouses the instinct of causality in man, he learns a lit- 
tle of nature's law, is strengthened by that knowledge, 
and impelled to look for more, and finds constantly 
more even than he hoped for. Thus for convenient use 
he studies the surface of the ground, which necessity 
compels him to divide into farm-lots, garden-lots, and 
spots for building; and at length the great science of 
geometry is born, the child of reason and the ground. 
He looks at the stars and behold, the science of as- 
tronomy is born, daughter of reason and the heavens! 
Fed with facts by the mother, and with ideas by the 
father, what a stately queen has she grown up to be! 
So from the study of the earth come geography and 
geology, and from the study of the plants and animals 
come botany and zoology. Reason grows by what it 
feeds on. What an odds between the philosophical 
power of New England to-day and New England two 
hundred years ago ! Still more, note the difference be- 
tween the reason of mankind to-day, and that of man- 
kind four thousand years ago. This growth comes 
from the fit relation which exists between the world of 
matter and this mighty reason which is enthroned in 
man. The law of the world of matter is knowable by 
man; and when his thought knows that, the world of 
matter is manageable by his toil, and he can use its 
forces to serve his end. 

This power of science depends not only on the mind 
itself, but on the nice relation between that and the 
world of matter outside. What if this world of mat- 



320 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



ter were — as the ministers oftentimes tell us it is — a 
bundle of incoherent things, no constant law in force 
therein, God intervening by capricious miracle to turn 
a stick into a snake, water to blood, dust to flies and 
creeping things, mud to frogs, and ashes to a plague 
on beasts and men ; what if he sent miraculous darkness 
which could be felt, to revenge him on some handful of 
wicked men ; what if by miracle he opened the sea and 
let a nation through, and then poured the waters back 
on its advancing foe; what if the rocks became water, 
and the heavens rained bread for forty years; what if 
at a magic touch the sun and moon stood still all day 
and let a filibustering troop destroy their foe; what if 
iron swam at some man's command, or the shadow on 
the dial-plate went back for half a day ; what if a whale 
engulfed a disobedient prophet who fled from God's 
higher law, and kept him three days shut up, till he 
made a great poetic psalm; w T hat if a son were born 
with no human father and could by miracle walk on the 
waves as on dry land, change water into wine, feed five 
thousand men with five little barley loaves, and have in 
reserve twelve baskets full of broken bread; what if 
he could still the winds and the waters with a word, re- 
buke disease, restore the lame and the blind at a touch, 
and wake the dead with " Lazarus, come forth ! " 
Why! science would not be possible, there would be 
nothing but stupid wonder and amazement, and instead 
of the grand spectacle of a universe, with law every- 
where, thought waking reason everywhere, and stirring 
Newton to write the Principia of natural science, Lin- 
naeus to describe the systems of plants, Laplace to 
cipher out the mechanics of the sky, Kant to unfold 
the metaphysics of man and the philosophy of human 
history, and the masterly intellect of Cuvier to classify 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN 



321 



the animal kingdom, mankind thereby growing wiser 
and still more powerful — this we should not have, we 
should have no great Leviathan to sail the sea, but 
instead we should have a priest's world of capricious 
chaos, some prophet going up to heaven on his own 
garment, some witch careering on a broom, and man 
vulgarly staring as in a farmer's yard a calf stands 
gaping at some new barn door. What is the world of 
monkish legend, the world of the Arabian Nights En- 
tertainments, the world of the Catholic church, the 
world of the Calvinistic church, or of the popular the- 
ology of our times compared with the grand world 
which God has made it — stars millions of millions of 
miles away looking down on these flowers at my side, 
and all the way between law, order, never once a mir- 
acle ; and all this so wondrously and tenderly related to 
man's mind ! 

The world of matter is not less closely related to the 
moral progress of mankind. There is a provision to 
satisfy the wants of every creature; there is food for 
beast and man, and delight for every living thing. 
This arrangement shows a principle of justice, which 
is in the ground, the water, the air, in daylight and 
darkness. Such is the sympathetic relation between the 
creating power, which makes the summer water spawn 
with fish, the summer air to hum with insects, and the 
providing power, which day by day fills the air and 
water with their food, that before we know we feel the 
two are one; and when we recognize the even-handed 
justice of the outer world, which contents our con- 
science, we see that the world of matter, with its mo- 
tion, vegetation, and animation, is a perfect world. 

Then the order and regularity of nature hint to us 
1—21 



322 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



the certainty of a law, a motive, a purpose, which are all 
perfect. Nothing depends on caprice, there is nothing 
chimerical; we feel a certain moral satisfaction and se- 
curity. The world of matter we find is nest for the 
conscience not less than the intellect. 

While at work in the world, finding for the body its 
food, shelter, medicine and tools, we are brought into 
complicated relations with other men who are seeking 
the same things with equal appetite. In our conscience 
we find a moral law, like what prevails always in nature, 
which the spirit of nature contains, — the conscience 
which sees right, and the will which would do right. I 
am not dreaming when I tell of the moral effect of 
nature. 

So the affections have their relation to the world of 
matter. We have a fondness for the beauty of nature, 
which is not merely of imagination, but of feeling as 
well. Thus we love certain spots of earth above all 
others, — great trees, tall mountains, some sunny nook 
with a certain outlook to the sea; some great particu- 
lar star is dear to us. So the lily, the rose, the violet 
are objects of affection, even to savage men. The civil- 
ized man takes these with him all over the world and 
plants them where he goes, affection putting a girdle of 
plants about the earth. 

What a tender feeling the Puritan fathers had 
for the lilac, the primrose, the sun-flower and the 
marigold, which they brought with them from their 
homes ; dear friends once, poor relations of the wealthy 
garden now ! It is not only the imagination which 
is pleased at the sight of pitcher plants, ladies' slip- 
pers, wild roses, water lilies, fringed gentians; it is 
affection quite as much. 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN 



323 



" The heart with pleasure thrills, 

And dances with the daffodils." 

But the animals are more nearly related to man's 
affections. Early the dog joins man, and is perhaps 
the only beast who voluntarily puts himself under his 
protection. Thus he became man's companion, the 
earliest living tool with which he masters other beasts. 
A mutual affection comes up between the two which is 
older than science or the art of beauty. Each helps 
civilize the other, for man must somewhat tame his own 
passion before he can domesticate the cat, the dog, the 
mule, or the cow. A certain affection joins man to the 
swine, the sheep, the ox, the ass, the horse, the camel, 
and the elephant. They are beasts of service, but ob- 
jects of affection also. No driver feels to his engine as 
the man does to his horse. I value a sewing-machine, I 
admire a picture, but I love a horse or a dog. 

But I must say a word of the relation of the world of 
matter to the religious faculty. Alexander von Hum- 
boldt — the ministers call him an atheist — says, " We 
find even amongst the most savage nations a certain 
vague, terror-stricken sense of the all-powerful unity 
of the natural forces and of the existence of an invisi- 
ble spiritual essence manifested in those forces; and we 
may trace here the existence of a bond of union linking 
together the visible world and that higher spiritual 
world which escapes the grasp of the senses." 

The general aspect of nature, with its vast power 
and constant law has a direct influence to waken rever- 
ence and something of awe. The sublimity of the 
ocean, the motion of all life in the earth, the grandeur 
of the mountain, the wide plain and great river, fill all 
thoughtful men with vague, dreamy longings toward 



324 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



the great cause and providence which creates them all, 
and fills them all with wondrous life. So the thought 
of the great trees, the wide-spread forest, house and 
home for such worlds of life, the bright wild flower, 
the common grass and grain, food for beast and man — 
all waken religious feelings in the best and worst of us 
all. Still more, perhaps, the sun, moon and stars come 
home to our consciousness, and stir the feelings infinite. 
Nature speaks thus to all men, in all lands, in every 
stage of culture, highest and humblest. This is the 
reason why the rude man worships the objects of na- 
ture first, and makes gods of them, — sun, moon or 
stars, the ocean, mountain, land, rock or tree, beast or 
bird. This is the rude beginning of mankind's out- 
ward religion, which represents the innermost fact of 
religious consciousness ; these poor material things are 
the lowly rounds in the ladder which mankind travels 
on, till we come to a knowledge of the infinite God, who 
transcends all form, all space, all time. The great and 
unusual phenomena of nature affect the religious feel- 
ings with exceeding power, such as an eclipse of the 
sun or moon, the appearance of comets, that " from 
their horrid hair shake pestilence and war," an earth- 
quake, a storm, thunder and lightning. To you and 
me these things are not troublesome; but to the wild 
man, the savage, or the half civilized, they bring great 
fear and dread, and thereby waken the religious feel- 
ing, which thence slowly tends on to its ultimate work 
of peace and joy and love. This terror before the vio- 
lence of nature is exceedingly valuable to the savage 
man, and it plays the same part in the history of his 
religion that want has played in the history of his toil 
and thought. It directs faculty to its function. Once 
nothing but hunger and fear would make man toil and 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN 325 



think; then, in his rudeness, nothing but the violent 
aspect of the world would rouse his soul from its savage 
lethargy ; then storm and earthquake, thunder and 
lightning, were the prophets which spake to man. To 
the rude the teacher must also be rude. But this fear 
tormenting man so, he presently studies nature to see 
if there be cause for fear, and the knowledge which he 
gains thereby is real joy. 

Well did a great Roman poet, two thousand years 
ago — copying a greater poet, whose reason surpassed 
even his mighty imagination — say, " Happy is he who 
can understand the true causes of things, and tramples 
underneath his feet all fear, inexorable fate, and the 
roar of angry hell." At length men find that the 
eclipse or the comet was not harmful, that the storm 
came not in wrath, that the earthquake tells nothing 
of an angry God, only of a globe not finished yet, 
that the thunder and lightning are beneficent, that the 
power of the earth, the round ocean, and the living air, 
are full of love. The law of nature leads man to be- 
hold the lawgiver, and the benevolence which he finds in 
the vast majority of cases makes him certain he shall 
find it when he understands those cases which he knows 
not yet. He goes from " nature up to nature's God ; " 
and when he knows the earth, its air, water, land, its 
powers of motion, vegetation, animation, knows the 
solar system, which maintains for earth its place, knows 
the astral system which furnishes earth its spot, when 
he looks on the unresolved nebulae, which may perhaps 
be another astral system, so far away that it looks like 
dust of stars scattered in some corner of the sky, — 
then does his soul run over with love for that dear God 
who established such relation between the cosmic uni- 
verse and the astral system, between that and the solar 



326 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



system, between that and the earth, between the earth 
and his body and spirit, his mind and conscience, heart 
and soul ; and then he turns and loves that God with all 
his understanding, with all his heart and strength ; na- 
ture from without leagues with spirit from within, and 
constrains him thus. 

To gather to one knot the several threads loose-scat- 
tered in the former sermons and in this — the world of 
matter is a perfect nest for man's body, as far as we 
understand, and if some few hairs seem to fret his 
flesh, the conclusion is that they also have a service 
to perform, and fret it for his good. Then the world 
of matter is also a perfect nest for man's spirit, fitting 
its every part. This fitness to flesh or spirit is not ac- 
cident nor caprice, nor brought about by interference, 
by transient miracle; it is fixed in the constitution of 
matter, and in the constitution of the human spirit; in 
the special character of the earth ; in the distribution of 
air, water, land; in the chemical composition of each 
of these; in the power of motion through its fivefold 
forms, by attraction, affinity, heat, light and electricity; 
in the power of vegetation and animation; in the struc- 
tural character of the earth, which depends on the solar 
system, that on the astral, and that on the great cosmic 
universe itself, — and all this relation between man's 
soul, its tenderest faculty, and the world of matter, was 
arranged millions of millions of years before the solar 
system itself began. Throughout that universe of 
space and time do we find ever power, law, mind; and 
what we know we know is good, and what we know not 
we think is good. 

What then is God's character? Let the relation of 
matter to man's spirit tell. There is such loving kind- 



THE SPIRIT OF MAN 327 



ness as motive to creation, such wisdom and justice to 
fix the purpose and plan of creation, such power to 
serve as means to that purpose, that matter fits the 
mind of man, fits his conscience, his affection and his 
soul, so that it feeds, educates, strengthens, refines and 
blesses every spiritual faculty. If it did this only for 
the wild man or the savage, then the world of matter 
would be but a cradle, a primary school for the body? 
but no house and college for the civilized man ; and 
then the wild man would be always wild, the baby 
would never be a boy. If it did this only for the en- 
lightened man, then the world of matter would be house 
and college only for the scholar when full grown, not 
cradle and primary school to train him up. In either 
case, it were well nigh useless, and you might have your 
doubt of God. But now the world of matter is spirit- 
ual nest for the wild man, for the savage, for the bar- 
barian, for the most enlightened man of to-day ; nay, 
multiply our enlightenment of to-day by the enlighten- 
ment of to-day, and enlarge it never so much, still the 
world of matter is nest for man's spirit, carried to never 
so high degrees of strength and refinement. The God 
who makes it all is power, law, mind, is also justice, and 
also love! How vast the power, how thoughtful the 
mighty mind, how comprehensive the justice, how far- 
reaching that endless love, which fills the universal 
space, the eternal time, with such a plan, which works 
for you and me, and, while it takes in this universe of 
space, this immensity of time, and provides for all, — > 
the wild man, the savage, for all the millions that have 
been, are, and shall be, never neglects a single mote 
that peoples the sun's beams ! This is the God which 
is told of by the relation between man's spirit and the 
material world; and in sight of it the spirit of man 



328 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



looks up and worships, and adores ; and he opens his 
heart, and loves, and trusts — My God, my Father, 
and my Mother too ! 



6 



RELATION OF GOD AND MAN 

Besides this he gave them knowledge and the law of life 
for an heritage. — Ecclesiastictjs xvii, 11. 

In the last four sermons we have looked at the evi- 
dences of God in the world of matter and the world of 
man, and in the relation between the world of matter 
and man's body and spirit. I propose to-day to com- 
plete this series of sermons, and so ask your attention 
to some thoughts on the relation between God and man. 

I shall speak first of the causal and providential re- 
lation of God to man, the relation on the part of God, 
who is infinite cause and providence to finite and de- 
pendent man ; next, of the mode of operation in w T hich 
that cause and providence works ; and finally, of the 
feeling which man will naturally have to God in con- 
sequence of this relation. 

First, of God's causal and providential relation to 
man. The infinite perfection of God we derive from 
our own consciousness ; partly, I think, from that spon- 
taneous action of the intellectual, moral, afFectional and 
religious faculties which we call instinct ; partly, also, 
from that voluntary action thereof which we name re- 
flection, whereby the intellect deliberately works up to 
philosophy what it gathers as fact. Here I start from 
the infinite perfection of God. 

He stands related to us in two ways ; first as the cre- 
ative cause which brings us into being, either directly or 
remotely ; second, as the conservative providence which 

329 



330 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



regulates the world and takes care that all goes right. 
These two, the causal and the providential, bringing us 
into being, then taking care of us while we exist, com- 
prise the entire relation between us on God's part. 

Now from the idea of God's infinite perfection, by 
logical deduction it follows that God's relation to man, 
causal and providential, must be perfect. That is, the 
infinite God, with perfect love to wish the best, with 
perfect wisdom to know the best, with perfect power 
to do the best, must have created man solely for the 
purpose of conferring on him the greatest amount of 
possible welfare which man's nature could possibly re- 
ceive. You see at once that this follows unavoidably — 
for no other purpose could be consistent with infinite 
power, wisdom and love. It would not be possible for 
a God infinite in love to create man for the purpose 
of making him as miserable as possible ; only a devil of 
perfect hate could do that. Nor would it be possible 
for such a God to create man less happy than he could 
create him ; he could only do that through not wishing 
men to be so happy as he could make them to be, and 
that would be in consequence of God's not being perfect 
in love to men. So from the idea of God's infinite per- 
fection it follows that the divine purpose of creation 
must be to confer the greatest possible welfare on each 
created thing. This must be true of his relation to 
mankind as a whole, in the entire existence thereof, and 
also true of his relation to each individual, — for as 
the loving motive is qualitatively infinite, so quantita- 
tively it takes in Jesus, Judas, Peter, James, and John, 
every living man. Suppose there were a thousand 
million men on earth to-day. The love which desires 
the greatest possible welfare for 999,999,999, and 
cither through hate or indifference omits the millionth, 



GOD AND MAN 



331 



is not perfect love; but as God is infinitely perfect in 
all qualities, so must he equally desire the welfare of 
each and all. In this reasoning there can be no mis- 
take as to God's motive and purpose; the motive must 
be absolute love, the purpose absolute welfare. 

Now God is not only infinitely loving to wish welfare, 
but also infinitely wise to know welfare, and infinitely 
powerful to achieve it. Accordingly he must provide 
means perfectly adequate to his perfect purpose. Cre- 
ating and providing, that is, inventing, organizing and 
administering the universe of matter and of man, he 
must make them fit to accomplish just what he wishes. 
God's ideal of desire in creation must be God's actual 
of attainment in creation; it is so on the whole, so in 
each part ; the world of matter is j ust what God meant 
it to be, the world of man is just what God meant it to 
be, and the relation between the two just what God 
meant it to be. There is no antagonism to work out- 
side of God, and make confusion and contradiction in 
the universe, and thwart him by sowing tares amongst 
his wheat, for therein God is the only inventor, or- 
ganizer and administrator, and so there is no external 
difficulty in the way of achieving his purpose. There 
is no antagonism of desire or will inside of God, to 
make confusion and contradiction in God's own con- 
sciousness and thwart his benevolence by conflicting 
motives of ill-will, and accordingly there is no internal 
difficulty in the way of his executing his purpose. To 
will is present with him, and how to do he also finds a 
way, with no hindrance from within or without to pre- 
vent his universe from being a perfect means to a per- 
fect end. So then, not only does this causal provi- 
dence of the infinite God aim at the greatest possible 
welfare for each man, but also provides a means to 



332 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



achieve that end. This is true of mankind in the whole, 
true of each special person ; no man can be neglected 
by the perfect love, wisdom and power of God. If the 
means be adequate to secure the welfare of 999,999,999 
persons, and through weakness fail to secure it for the 
millionth, then the means are not infinitely perfect, and 
not possible for the infinitely perfect God to create. 
All this follows unmistakably; there is no fault in this 
logic, and if you watch the process, step by step, you 
are as sure of each step as that one and one make two. 
But by reasoning in this general way and from facts 
of consciousness, either spontaneous, of instinct, or re- 
flective, of philosophy, we learn only the benevolence 
of the purpose, the sufficiency of the means, the cer- 
tainty of the end ; but we learn nothing about the 
method by which the means are worked, and the man- 
ner in which the end is attainable; for these we must 
look elsewhere. 

So consider the next point, namely, the mode of 
operation by which the infinite God works, and see in 
what method and manner he executes his purpose. 
Here it is not facts of instinctive or of reflective con- 
sciousness alone we are to look at, but facts of observa- 
tion in the world of matter ; and to avoid perplexity and 
confusion, I shall refer chiefly to those facts which I 
have mentioned in the four preceding sermons. 

So far as we know the universe there is a plan in it, — 
regularity, order, force as acting for a purpose. This 
appears in all parts, in the silicious shells which you find 
by millions in a handful of peat ashes from a farmer's 
fire, in the structure of the vast solar system itself. So 
far as we know, not only is there a plan for each thing, 
but a unity of plan for the whole, all parts working 



GOD AND MAN 



333 



harmoniously together, the astral system with the solar 
system, the solar system with the earth, the earth with 
man, the world of matter affording what is needful to 
his automatic powers, — warmth, light, breath, sound, 
smell; and for his voluntative powers affording food, 
shelter, medicine and tools. There is a perfect har- 
mony of relation between each smallest or largest plant 
and the air, water, earth, heat, light, electricity; but 
this harmonious relation depends on the gravitation at 
the earth's surface, that in part on the swiftness of 
its rotation, the length of day and night, that on the 
width of the earth's attractional orbit, and that on the 
general structure of the solar system; so the plan 
reaches through the whole solar system, and takes in 
the little green fucus on the outside of yonder wall. 
Such unity of purpose is there in so vast a plan, so 
widely extended throughout space. 

Now this plan has a vast extent in time as well as 
space; it occupies all known time, in all known space, 
space universal and time immense. Things are got 
ready for man whose use does not appear till millions of 
years have passed away. See how slowly the child 
grows up from a puny baby, an impotent mass of pulpy 
substance, to a man. But that is only the smallest part 
of his history. Long series of animals preceded him, 
— radiates, articulates, mollusks, vertebrates, all slop- 
ing up to him, and they all pointed to him with the si- 
lent ringer of prophecy, and before he is born he goes 
through the forms of several animals lower than him- 
self, nay, sometimes comes into this world with the 
mother mask of the inferior animals upon him, here with 
& hair lip, there with web fingers or toes, or the gills 
of a frog; and the German physicians say that every 
five thousandth man is born with the marks of a fish's 



334 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



gills upon his neck, which every baby has at a certain 
stage of its foetal progress. Man comes therefore at 
the end of a long series of animals, who are forerun- 
ners of this messiah, voices crying in the wilderness, 
" The kingdom of man is at hand ! Prepare his ways, 
and make his paths straight ! " One day I make no 
doubt it will be understood that man could not have 
existed without the help of these inferior animals, more 
than our tools of steel could have existed without our 
ancestors' tools of wood and bone and rock, wherewith 
the tool-making process began. In nature there is 
nothing by leaps, everything gradually slopes up to 
its perfection. But the world of vegetation must pre- 
cede the world of animals which feed thereon, and the 
mineral or inorganic world must come before the world 
of plants which feed on it ; and the special structure of 
the minerals depends on the structure of the solar sys- 
tem itself. So then, in all the time from the first or- 
ganization of the solar system, when it was nothing 
but a huge mass of dim nebulous vapor down to this 
minute, there has been a unity of plan, all forces work- 
ing together for a definite purpose, and man came at 
the end thereof. Let me take two plain and obvious 
examples. Many million years ago huge plants grew 
on the earth in immense numbers; they were destroyed 
in the great geological catastrophies which followed, 
and masses of matter were piled upon them ; by intense 
heat from below and immense pressure from above these 
plants were changed into coal; by subsequent convul- 
sions they were changed in their positions and so 
brought to light. This coal seemed useless for any 
purpose ; but as man becomes civilized he wants warmth 
in his house and heat to soften the metals and make 
them pliant and coal supplies his necessity. At the, 



GOD AND MAN 



335 



touch of coal obstinate iron becomes as pliant as a 
thread and man binds it as he will. Enlightened man 
wants power to turn his mill and bear his produce over 
land and sea, and coal furnishes it. Child of fire and 
water, the steam-engine is born to pass over land and 
ocean without rest, and to serve him also while it stands 
and waits. See what service coal performs ; it smelts 
iron, which turns to a thousand tools for all the arts of 
peace or war ; it is a railroad on the land, a ship on the 
water, a wire-road through the sky or underneath the 
sea whereon man's thought travels swift almost as the 
light. To-day there are six thousand mills in England 
driven by steam, which occupy the toil of nearly five 
million men. Nay, half the handsome dresses of this 
congregation were woven up by coal, and all have been 
taken on its sooty shoulders and borne unsoiled from 
place to place. It warms our houses, bakes our bread, 
and is the most efficient minister of our civilization ; 
and yet it was provided for at least ten million years 
ago and invested with all its wondrous properties. In 
the great states of Kentucky and Tennessee the coal 
formation is so rich that it is computed there are a 
million tons to every square mile of land ; and two tons 
of coal has got more physical power than a common 
man can develop in himself from the time he is 16 till 
he is 65 ; I mean two tons of coal would turn a grind- 
stone more times than a man in his whole life could do. 
What an immense provision for future toil, and so for 
future civilization is laid up under those states; man 
has but to bring it to the surface. Now such unity of 
plan is there in this world of time that ten million years 
ago this power of work and civilization was stored 
away to remain till man should need it. Strike coal 
from existence and you see how much of our present 



336 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



civilization would perish along with it. Sulphur, car- 
bon, hydrogen are as old as the solar system; none of 
them has changed in property or power. Unite them 
in a certain way, and you have an ether which makes 
the flesh insensible to pain and the surgeon cuts our 
limbs as wood and we feel it not. Now tins power to 
stupify the sense of pain was provided for at least a 
million years ago, though it was not brought to light 
till the genius of a Boston chemist 14 disclosed it to 
mankind a few years ago. What unity of plan is 
there all this time ! No miracle conferred a new prop- 
erty on these three substances, but when genius brought 
them together there was the power which God provided 
so long ago. 

In the universe all is done according to law, by the 
regular and orderly action of the forces thereof; there 
is a constant mode of operation which never changes. 
This is so with the power of motion, in all its five forms 
of attraction, affinity, heat, light and electricity ; and 
so with the powers of vegetation and animation. 
Nothing is done by human magic, nothing by divine 
miracle. Things come about slowly as it seems to us, 
but orderly. Religious poets tell us that God said in 
Hebrew speech, " Let the earth be! " and it was forth- 
with. " Let the waters bring forth fish, the air fowls, 
and the earth cattle and creeping things ! " and it was 
done. But when you consult the record of the earth 
itself you find that the six days' miracle of the poet 
were millions of years' work of the divine forces of the 
universe and never a miracle. These forces are always 
adequate to do their work and to achieve the divine pur- 
pose with no miraculous help, no intervention on God's 
part, no new creation of forces, and in that immense 



GOD AND MAN 337 

book of space whose leaves date back through such vast 
periods of time, there is not a single miracle recorded; 
not once does it appear that God intervened and 
changed the normal action of any single thing. So 
from observation you find as fact what from conscious- 
ness you developed likewise as idea. 

Destruction also takes place. In times past there 
have been great convulsions of the elements whereby 
things which suited one condition were destroyed to give 
place to things which suited a new condition. Thus 
the plants which became coal and the animals which fed 
thereon were destroyed after they had done their work, 
just as the snow melts in spring and the snowflakes 
perish, with it ; just as you and I shall die when we have 
served out the time God enlisted us for. Earthquakes 
and volcanoes still perform their destructive work ; thus 
a storm may destroy beasts and men, lightning strike 
them down or a tornado whirl them away; death fol- 
lows on the steps of life; pain is never far from any 
one of us, sometimes a constant companion. These 
things trouble men at first, but when carefully looked at 
and understood the}' present no difficulty. The pain 
we suffer is just enough to make us preserve our life 
or limbs; without it not a child would grow up with a 
finger, a tooth, or an eye. Death is no evil; it is a 
ripening, a finishing and passing off ; no more an evil 
than birth, but like it one step more, a step upward 
and forward. This is true of the death of John and 
Sally, true likewise of the death of a race of animals, 
whose huge bones or tiny shells we find laid between the 
leaves of this great stone book. When the race of 
saurians a million years ago had done their work, it 
was proper that the race should die. A storm is the 

regular action of natural forces, as much so as the sun's 
1—22 



338 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



rise or the opening of a rose. Volcanoes and earth- 
quakes are equally orderly, and no doubt are as be- 
neficent in the motive which causes them to be, as in 
the purpose which they serve. A certain economy is 
noticeable in the divine plan ; there is a maximum of re- 
sult, with a minimum of force, for nothing is wasted in 
this world. This is true in regard to pain. The girl 
on skates at first stumbles and hurts herself just enough 
to make her take care. Pain is the school-master to 
bring us to soundness and health. The forms of death 
most common to every creature below man are the 
easiest. Rapacious animals seize their prey and shake 
it to death. As you and I look on and see a terrier 
dog thus treat his prey we think it is a horrid mode of 
death ; but not many years since an experiment was per- 
formed which shows it is not so; a lion seized Dr. Liv- 
ingstone in South Africa, and treated him as a terrier 
does a rat, until attacked by another man, when he 
dropped the missionary ; and the doctor says he felt 
no pain, only a half-dreamy consciousness such as in- 
duced by taking chloroform or ether. This fact shows 
very plainly the motive in the divine being which ap- 
pointed for animals, the dog, the bear, and the cat 
tribe, this mode of putting their prey to death. The 
large emmets feed on the small emmets; the great ant 
gives chloroform to the little one before he rends him 
limb from limb, and the benumbed ant suffers no pain. 
These facts point to a divine benevolence thus admin- 
istering the economy of things, even the smallest things. 

In the midst of this alternate construction and de- 
struction, new life and death, there is a regular ascend- 
ing development in the world of matter, a constant 
tendency upward to higher and higher forms of things. 
First there is mere mineral matter with only its power 



GOD AND MAN 



339 



of motion in its five forms ; and if the philosophic the- 
ory of Laplace be true, even there, there is a remark- 
able progress in the formation of this mineral matter 
which the solar system has gone through. First it is 
a mass of thin vapor; then this matter condenses, and 
rotates slowly about itself; then the matter breaks into 
consecutive rings, one separating after another; then 
the rings condense into spheres, each rotating about its 
own axis and revolving likewise about the central mass ; 
some of them are possessed of rings surrounding them- 
selves, which subsequently break and condense into 
moons ; at length each takes the form of the various 
planets, from Neptune to Mercury. This earth goes 
through several geological phases, passing gradually 
to higher and higher forms of motion. 

Then there is vegetable matter with its power of 
growth. The earliest plants appear to have been quite 
rude and simple in their structure, closely allied to the 
mineral forms of crystallization ; and from these hum- 
ble efforts there is a constant sloping up to the mighty 
baobab tree. Then comes animal life, with its various 
means of power; then human life, with its power of 
conscious toil and thought, and its ability thereby to 
make the forces of the earth serve man for food, shelter, 
medicine and tools. 

This ascending progress seems to be the general rule 
in the universe, things beginning in their lowest and 
humblest forms, and gradually going higher and 
higher, and becoming more complex. In the animals 
below man this progress goes on by the creation of new 
kinds of animals, each with higher functions than the 
other, for there is progress for the individual from 
birth onward in all animals, but no progress in the 



340 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



species, from the first bear to the last bear. So there 
could be only the biography of a particular bear, trac- 
ing his development from birth to complete and full- 
grown bearhood, and then his decline and death; but 
there can be no history of the bear kind, for there is no 
progressive development of beardom, no rise and prog- 
ress, no decline and fall; their number may fluctuate, 
their character is always the same. But in the case of 
man, progress is not merely by the creation of new 
kinds of men, each higher than the last, but by the de- 
velopment of the whole through successive stages of 
primitive wildness, savagedom, barbarism, half -civiliza- 
tion, and the civilized and enlightened state. In John 
and Sally there is an individual progress from baby- 
hood to maturity and death, whereafter the progress 
begins again and goes on forever through new stages 
we know little of, perhaps nothing. Their children will 
start from a little higher elevation to begin with, and 
go a little further up than the point their father and 
mother attained. The next generation is always an 
improvement on the former; it starts if not with im- 
proved faculties, at least with improved opportunities 
and additional speed, which practically amount to the 
same thing. The beasts can transmit nothing but their 
body, while this generation will bequeath to its succes- 
sors not only its improved bodily organization, but 
likewise the result of all the toil and thought which we 
have inherited from our fathers, and all which we have 
added to that inheritance. With England and Russia 
there is national progress from the rude condition of 
two thousand years ago up to this day, and this will 
go on I know not how long. At length these nations, 
I suppose, will decline and perish, but the new nations 
which shall take their place, in the year 5858 or 2858, 



GOD AND MAN 



341 



will start with a higher civilization, perhaps with better 
faculties, certainly with better tools and opportunities, 
and go still further on. Now with mankind there is a 
human progress from wildness to barbarism, civiliza- 
tion, and so on, and as the human race never dies, like 
John and Sally, and England and Russia, that prog- 
ress is continual, and all the intellectual, moral, affec- 
tional and religious excellence brought out by John 
and Sally, by England and Russia, at their death falls 
to the inheritance of mankind, which is the residuary 
legatee and heir at law of all who die, and which takes 
possession of all individual and national value. In this 
progress three things are noticeable, — the development 
of faculties, intellectual, moral, afFectional and reli- 
gious ; the acquisition of increased power over the ma- 
terial world to control the motion, vegetation, and ani- 
mation of the earth, and therewith feed, shelter, heal 
and serve mankind the more ; and the gathering of men 
into larger and larger companies, where all have a cer- 
tain joint unity of action, and each preserves personal 
freedom, so that each loses nothing and every one gains 
from all. 

Now this progress is brought about by the forces 
which are in matter and man, and the harmonious rela- 
tion between the two; and as this human and material 
power always exists, and as their relation is always per- 
fect, so the progressive development of mankind is a 
constant fact, the resultant of all men's various toil and 
thought. As the motions of that nebulous mass, just 
referred to, its attraction, its separation into concen- 
tric rings, their condensation and formation into plan- 
ets, are a part of the plan of the solar system, and 
therefore not a movement is lost, so all the world of 



342 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



mankind tends to the progressive development of man's 
faculties, the acquisition of greater power over mate- 
rial forces, and the attainment of a higher social and 
individual welfare for each and all, and this progress is 
just as sure to go on as the planet Neptune is to move 
about the sun, or as babies to be born from year to 
year. In the world of matter there is no individual 
will, no individual experiment, no disturbing force oc- 
curs there, and so there is never a mistake. You can 
calculate the place of the sixth moon of Saturn with in- 
fallible certainty, for the forces which control it are 
known and appreciable. But man has a certain 
amount of freedom; part of his conduct depends on 
personal caprice; he must make progress by experi- 
ments, which may fail, many will fail, and pain attend 
the failure. This pain forbids the repetition of the 
failure. Johnny puts his finger into the fire; the pain 
is such that he does not repeat the experiment. Russia 
puts her finger into Moldavia, 15 and is hurt thereby, 
and will not try the experiment again. In the long 
run, this pain for the individual mistake is adequate 
correction, and at last will help us to that welfare which 
we seek. 

Now the ideal condition and character, which both 
men and nations feel so far above their actual attain- 
ment, the ceaseless experiments they make to realize 
that ideal, the pain which follows any failure, the joy 
which comes of their success, and the mighty instinct 
of progress in all the leading races of mankind, show 
that man is to have an immense duration here, corre- 
sponding to that vast amount of time the earth has 
been in getting ready for him. When you look over 
the whole of human history and know man's successful 
development from the wild to the enlightened state, it 



GOD AND MAN 



343 



is quite plain that we are on the march towards a 
glorious triumph of civilization for mankind on earth, 
as well as for the individual man beyond the earth, and 
this is no more likely to fail than the sun is to drop 
out of the heavens, for this progressive development of 
man depends on forces which are as constant as gravi- 
tation, and which can never fail unless human nature 
or material nature should fail. The world of matter is 
nest for man in his wild state, so fitted that it stirs him 
to the next stage above it, and that to the enlightened 
state, which is likewise a nest to stimulate him still 
more; and when our children shall have advanced so 
far that the nineteenth century after Christ shall seem 
to them as the nineteenth century before Christ seems 
to us, depend upon it the world of matter will still 
stimulate man to take fresh steps in his ever-ascending 
march. 

So far then we are sure of two things on God's part 
in his relation to us, — that the infinite God acts from 
a perfect motive, to confer the highest possible welfare 
on each man, and by the perfect means which are en- 
tirely adequate to that great end; next, that this will 
be brought about by the constant mode of operation of 
the forces of matter and man ; that the arrangement 
is made at vast distances of time and space, and all the 
conditions of the material and human world are formed 
and provided for and made subservient to that great 
end, even pain itself is minister to that welfare. On 
man's part we are also sure of the personal immortality 
provided for by the infinite perfection of God. 

Now what are the feelings that man will naturally 
have towards God from knowing this infinitely perfect 
character, this progressive development by means of 



SU MATTER AND SPIRIT 



the harmonious relation between man and matter, and 
the constant mode of operation of the forces therein? 
First of all there comes a feeling of absolute trust, a 
reliance on the dear Father and Mother of us and all 
the world of life. The innermost primitive fact of in- 
stinctive religious consciousness is the sense of depend- 
ence, a feeling of want which only a God can supply ; 
but the innermost ultimate fact of reflective religious 
consciousness is the idea of the infinitely perfect God, 
who works from love as motive, for man's highest pos- 
sible welfare as purpose, with all the powers of the 
universe as means, by their constant mode of opera- 
tion as method, and who will achieve infinite welfare for 
each and all as his end. As by animal instinct the 
newborn baby seeks with instinctive mouth for the 
mother's breast, so by spiritual instinct man seeks after 
God with great hungering of the spirit; and as the 
baby is fed and satisfied with that natural food thus 
providentially furnished for its baby mouth, the means 
of life and growth, so is the hungry soul fed and sat- 
isfied with the infinite God, and hangs thereon and lives 
and grows, not without access of unexpected strength. 
God's infinite perfection satisfies the soul's desire, both 
the instinctive and reflective want, and as soon as we 
know this ever-live divinity we drop all less ideas and 
have no other God before him, nor make us any graven 
image or likeness of anything in the heavens above, or 
the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth, but 
bow down and worship that. Then the Gods of the 
churches, with their intervention, their miracle, their 
special love, their private hate, and endless hell, are seen 
to be but idols, which are nothing, while we worship in 
our turn the real God who is. We feel entire confi- 
dence in him. We are sure of God; he is all that we 



GOD AND MAN 



345 



could wish, far more, for he transcends our instinctive 
feeling and our reflective thought. I know that the in- 
finite God loves me more than my mortal father and 
mother ever could, and desires my welfare as much more 
than they as his infinite power is above their little 
ness ! He loves me better than I myself ; I may forget 
myself, the infinite God will never forget me; I may 
try reckless experiments with myself, but God never 
will, nor suffer mine to reach their maddest result. I 
may stretch out my hands against my own life; he will 
restrain my hands so that I cannot take it; a mother's 
hand holds and checks me with her gentle, " Thus far, 
my child, and no farther! " 

I say I am sure of God ; sure of his motive, which is 
love ; sure of his purpose, which is the greatest welfare 
possible for me to receive ; sure of his means, the pow- 
ers of the universe of matter and of spirit, fit for their 
work, aye, all the powers of omnipotence, the all-wise, 
all- just, all-loving God; sure of the method, the con- 
stant mode of operation of all these powers, material 
and spiritual ; and sure of the end, absolute welfare for 
myself, for all mankind, sure to be as blessed as I can 
bear, secure of infinite progress for ever and ever. If 
I am prosperous, what additional delight comes from 
my thought of God and trust in him, the infinite 
Father, the infinite Mother. As more than gold or dia- 
monds do I value a brown leaf by a dear hand choicely 
laid to mark some precious word in a book, marking at 
the same time some yet more precious passage in my 
life, so do I value the little talent I have, the slender 
excellence, a brown leaf laid in to mark my page in the 
world's great book where it stands written that with 
shovel or broom I clean the streets of the town, or with 



346 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



pen and paper I seek to clean the theological air of the 
world. I remember that this power comes from God 
and how grand and glorious then appears my humble 
life, its little talent, my slender excellence laid there be- 
tween the storied pages of the book of God. If I am 
unprosperous, my fortune broken, my good name gone, 
my health decayed, if my dear ones crumble and moul- 
der away in the slow fire of time, and I am left 
alone, sick, friendless, poor and old, — still bright 
within the clear heaven of my consciousness shines the 
eternal light of God, and I am never alone, I am rich 
and strong and young with hopeful life. Let my na- 
tion decline, like Italy or Spain, the queen debauched 
by her vices dying of hopeless decay, and let it be en- 
slaved, like Africa, too cowardly to clutch the tyrant's 
throat, — still I can look this in the face with sad se- 
renity and say, " Thou God knowest that good shall 
come out of this evil, to the tyrant who desires to en- 
slave, and to the victim who dares not smite and kill." 

Then there is a desire to be in harmony with the 
infinitely perfect God, not only to know God by feel- 
ing and thought, in the instinctive emotion and philo- 
sophic reflection, but also to be at one with him, my life 
in unison with his life, as the sunshine or the rain is in 
unison with the world. So I shall seek to use every 
limb of my body and every faculty of my spirit in its 
normal way, and for its normal work. I shall edu- 
cate my mind and conscience and heart and soul to the 
highest possible degree, cutting nothing off sacrament- 
ally, trying nothing on superstitiously, but using them 
for the highest possible work. Hence I shall toil and 
think, partly for myself, partly for other men, for my 
nation, for mankind. I shall submit to no wickedness 
which I can overcome; if a tyrant assail me, I shall 



GOD AND MAN 



347 



kill the tyrant. I shall ask no miracle to help me, only 
the constant mode of operation of the natural powers 
of matter and man. The might which slaughters the 
victim's oppressor is one of the means God has given to 
put tyrants down. I cannot fail to love the infinite 
being who is above and within me, for to my mind he 
is the ideal wisdom and beauty, to my conscience the 
ideal justice and will, to my heart the ideal affection, 
and to my soul the ideal integrity, the absolute God, 
perfect, good, just, and fair, the God who is in mat- 
ter and spirit, and yet transcends them both with his 
infinity. He is the supreme God of desire to every 
faculty. So I love God as I can no other being, — 
father, mother, wife, child; my love to him transcends 
them all; it is reverence, it is gratitude, it is adoration, 
it is trust ; my will melts into his, and the two are one. 
All selfishness is gone, and in the life of God within my 
consciousness do I find my own higher life. We have 
our special times for feeling this love, our several ways 
for expressing it ; unhappy is that man or woman who 
tattles thereof, foaming at the mouth in some noisy 
conference, as in a village dog barks to dog, making 
night hideous with cannibal uproar; but blessed is he 
whose noiseless piety sweetens his daily toil, filling the 
house with the odor of that ointment; thrice blessed 
when it comes out in the character of the men whose 
holy lives, glittering with good deeds, adorn the land 
they also serve and heal and bless. In our sorrow for 
evils we cannot hinder, in our suffering for the pain 
and wickedness of other men, in our remorse at wrong 
deeds ourselves have done, — how sweetly comes this 
piety, joining us to the true and loving and living God. 
Then what joyous tranquillity comes in, what rest and 
peace for the soul. I do not wish to change the mind 



348 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



of God, nor the world of matter, nor the nature of man, 
nor alter the relation between them ; but I conform my- 
self to them. I deserve success, though I may not find 
it here and now; still I aspire upwards for perfection 
higher and higher yet, sure that I shall reach it at the 
last, and all mankind shall journey with me in that as- 
cending march. What is there more for man to ask? 
Dear Father and Mother in heaven and on earth, sure 
of thee, of all else am I also sure ! 

A poet of our own, a man of science not less, looking 
on the empty wreck of a chambered nautilus, and ap- 
plying to his ear the convolutions of that smooth- 
lipped shell, sung out the natural piety it whispered to 
his soul: — 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 

That spread his lustrous coil; 

Still, as the spiral grew, 
He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no 
more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, 

Child of the wandering sea, 

Cast from her lap, forlorn! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! 

While on my ear it rings, 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that 
sings : 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine out-grown shell by life's unresting sea! 



VII 



THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL DE- 
VELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 

1. 

As he thinketh in his heart, so is he. — Proverbs xxiii, 7. 

I ask jour attention to a discourse of the condition 
of Boston and New England in relation to the funda- 
mental principles of morals, with the causes therefor. 
Thoroughly to appreciate the moral condition of our 
town and New England, let us look at some prelimi- 
naries. 

Eirst, the bulk of New Englanders are of Anglo- 
Saxon origin, and accordingly they share the five lead- 
ing peculiarities of the Anglo-Saxon tribe, — its in- 
vasive and aggressive disposition; its exclusive nation- 
ality, hostility to other tribes of men ; its intense mate- 
rialism, and an unideal, unpoetic character; its great 
administrative power in practical business of all depart- 
ments, agriculture, and politics ; and its remarkable love 
of individual liberty, which is practically modified by 
decorum and love of law and order. That is the first 
thing, — the ethnological origin of the greater part of 
the people. 

Next, New England was at first a collection of re- 
ligious colonies. Men came here with religious mo- 
tives ; not so much to accumulate monej^, as to worship 
God in their own way ; they could make money at home, 
or wherever they might be cast; they could not pray 
as they liked ; the sky of England was not high enough 

349 



350 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



for the Puritan steeple. This religious origin has 
marked New England hitherto, and will distinguish her 
and her descendants for centuries to come. She is the 
daughter of a great idea, and the mother of yet 
greater ; a stern daughter, a severe mother, but of chil- 
dren fairer and larger than herself — " forty but 
kindly." It was the most spiritual part of the old 
Anglo-Saxons which came over, the least materialistic, 
the most ideal, the most devout; a little maddened by 
oppression, no doubt, but fired too with great thoughts 
of duty to God and the destination before man. That 
is the next peculiarity, — it was a religious colony. 

These religious Anglo-Saxons were on a continent 
fenced with an Atlantic ditch three thousand miles 
wide, and so separated from the old retarding influ- 
ences of the European continent. That is the third 
thing. 

Next, several other tribes here mixed their blood with 
the Anglo-Saxon; to wit, the Saxon-Scotch, a closely 
allied tribe, and the Scotch-Irish, only one step further 
removed. These added a new ethnological element to 
the constitution of the people, and so laid the founda- 
tion for wider sympathies and higher and nobler civili- 
zation than could be achieved by the Anglo-Saxon 
alone. Marriage between near relations depraves the 
stock ; and it is as true of great tribes of nations as of 
cousin Edward and cousin Jane. 

Two hundred years ago such men, some fifty or 
seventy thousand strong, found themselves in New 
England, — a wilderness before them, a sea behind. 
They had the best tools and machines of the past, the 
best institutions which were then known, — a repre- 
sentative form of government, and a congregational 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 351 



form of religion, then the most advanced of all. None 
so much scourged man with fear; none so teased him 
with longing hopes, none was so fitted to the then con- 
dition of these most spiritual Anglo-Saxons on the edge 
of the ocean. On the little isthmus of time the Puritan 
stood there, a great wide hell on his left hand, and a 
little, straight, narrow heaven on the other. Here was 
Jesus and the Holy Ghost inviting heavenward; there 
the devil, with witches, wizards, demons and chimeras 
dire, " shapes hot from Tartarus," allured or drove to 
darkness and utter death. Here he was in the woods, 
with his Bible in one hand to fend off the devil, with 
his working tools in the other to keep material want at 
a distance, and his firelock of war leaned in the thicket, 
never far behind him. 

Now all this ought to be borne in mind in order to 
appreciate our material condition to-day; for, letting 
alone all who have come to New England within the 
last fifteen years, nine-tenths of the remainder of the 
people of New England are descended from that body 
of pilgrims ; — and it is a fact of which we are suffi- 
ciently proud. We have reason to be proud, and the 
pride is sufficient. 

Now almost all the ideas, and consequently all the in- 
stitutions, set up in America, which are noble and we 
call American institutions, have come out of New Eng- 
land. Massachusetts is the mother state of American 
ideas, and on her platform, which is set up at New 
York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cleveland, any plat- 
form of great moral principles, there you see the foot- 
prints of Massachusetts feet ; and so all over the coun- 
try, — in California and in Pennsylvania, and states 
between. One great idea, however, which came early to 
New England, was not of American growth, the idea 



352 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



of free, unbounded religious toleration. The men who 
settled Plymouth learned it from the Hollanders, who 
extended it to them and to everybody else, for in the 
beginning of the seventeenth century there lived to- 
gether harmoniously Catholics and Protestants of every 
variety. The Anglo-Saxon had no such thought in 
his mind, and in America the Dutch who settled New 
York and the Germans who built up Pennsylvania set 
the same thought a-going ; and the Anglo-Saxon pres- 
ently learned to copy and carry it out. Toleration 
was a foreign scion grafted on the Puritan crab stock; 
and it took kindly in that tree, and grew famous shoots. 

The Puritan had no philosophy. At first he tried 
to make his religious instincts and his Scriptural tra- 
ditions serve instead, but it would not do ; even the 
Puritan must think and account to himself of God, of 
man, and the relation between them. He must do it 
with his own thought ; he must have his plan of the 
universe, must be a philosopher. This is one great vir- 
tue of Calvinism, that it turns a man in upon himself, 
and makes Mm think. By and by, of course, it makes 
him think a great ways beyond John Calvin; but it 
always leads men to thought, breeds metaphysicians; 
and I know not what would have made the Anglo- 
Saxon man here in the wilderness think as he did think, 
except Calvinism. 

So far as he attained philosophy distinct from Cal- 
vinism, it was what is known to scholars as the sensa- 
tional philosophy, — that scheme which declares that 
man has this mode of acquiring knowledge : first, by 
the senses, — seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tast- 
ing, and so on ; next by reflection on matter winch the 
senses afford him; and that is all. So, says this sensa- 
tional scheme of philosophy, there is nothing in a man's 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 353 



mind which was not first in his senses ; there are no in- 
nate ideas, there is no power to produce innate ideas. 
This scheme of philosophy, which I have dwelt on many 
times before, suited the materialistic tendency of the 
Anglo-Saxon, his unideal character, — because he eas- 
ily feels sure of what he touches and handles, not 
sure of what he touches with his soul, and handles 
only with his intellect. This sensational philosophy is 
the " original sin " of the Anglo-Saxon people ; it ap- 
pears in Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Paley, and Hume, who 
have been the greatest thinkers of this tribe. It ap- 
pears not less in Jonathan Edwards, strangely mixed 
up with notions gathered from another source. 

Now the Puritan did not like this philosophy; he 
could not legitimate his religion by it. Still it was the 
best he had, all he had. Beside it was the supernatural 
miraculous revelation, which was one thing; on the 
other side was this sensational philosophy. So if the 
Puritan broke with his supernaturalism, his miraculous 
tradition, he only joined himself to this sensational phi- 
losophy. If he got a broader field, it was on a lower 
plane. Before the Puritan, the Anglo-Saxon, could 
extricate himself from this difficulty, several things 
must come to his help. 

In the course of a hundred and twenty-five years, say 
from 1650 to 1775, three new helps came into the 
American experience. First, the works of the great 
continental writers on the laws of nature and of na- 
tions, such men as Grotius, Puppendorff, and their suc- 
cessors. These men treated of the natural rights of 
nations. That speculation led men to think of the nat- 
ural rights of individuals, and to declare the " natural 

and essential rights of men." 1 But here let me say, 
1—23 



354 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



that is a phrase not two hundred years old in any hu- 
man speech; I cannot trace it distinctly back quite a 
hundred years; for the first time I find it, it is in the 
mouth of James Otis in Faneuil Hall, preached as 
the gospel of the incipient democracy of the people of 
this town. 

Next, the works of the French free-thinkers came to 
America, — men who started with the sensational phi- 
losophy, and by logic severer than the English carried 
it out to its legitimate conclusion, and swept away a 
great deal of rubbish, and also a great deal that the 
human race could not afford to part with. Such men 
were Voltaire, Helvetius, and their followers. These 
works produced a profound influence on some of the 
greatest thinkers of America, on Dr. Franklin, Dr. 
Rush, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and George 
Washington, — the last of whom had little philosophy, 
being busy with practical things; but who seems to 
Have shared the opinions of these great French think- 
ers, both their good and ill. 

Thirdly, the most spiritual, and yet more radical, 
thinkers of France, who did not follow the materialistic 
school of England, had a deeper influence. Here come 
the writings of Rousseau, whose footsteps are deeply 
set in America, alongside of those of his illustrious fel- 
low citizen of Geneva. No foreigners have produced 
such an influence in America as these two citizens of 
Swiss Geneva, John Calvin and Jean Jaques Rousseau. 
It is a strange spectacle, — the two men as radically 
different as two could well be, but both dropping their 
penny of contribution into the alms-box of America, 
both producing great effects. 

These three new sources of help changed the ideas of 
America, and soon as a fair opportunity appeared new 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 355 



institutions must necessarily spring from the new ideas. 

But before the American Revolution there was no 
American thing common to the twelve colonies, no more 
than now between Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Sco- 
tia, and the British West Indies. They all united in a 
common love for England, which was the common cradle 
and crown. Fear of the French in the North and 
Northwest made them still more dependent on England ; 
but when that fear was removed by the cession of Can- 
ada, and the colonies needed England no longer for de- 
fense, her attempts to oppress the colonies destroyed 
the feeling of respect and love for her, and the spiritual 
bond was likewise rent asunder. The new ideas derived 
from these three sources, and the old unconquerable in- 
stinct for individual liberty, these made it easy for the 
colonies to separate from their mother country. You 
see the foot-prints of these three in the Declaration of 
Independence itself, and in the great state papers that 
preceded and followed it. 

While the war proceeded there was a rapid growth 
of ideas in America, partly helped by the new French 
thought which came with Lafayette, — who was the 
champion of philosophy as well as the rights of men in 
America, and who reported what he could not have in- 
vented, — and partly helped by the domestic thinking; 
for in a revolution the whole people becomes metaphys- 
ical and falls back on first principles and thinks rapidly, 
and deeply too. The same thing took place in France 
in 1789 and in 1848; the same kind of revolution is 
going on in England at this day. Great national ca- 
lamities produce this result. The colonies were held by 
outward pressure while the war lasted, and after it the 
Union was organized on the material instincts of the 



356 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



people; the North wanted union for industry and com- 
merce, the South for defense against foreign foes and 
domestic slaves. The Revolution removed a great many 
causes which had hindered the moral development of the 
American people, and it left us free and independent, 
giving us therefore the prime condition of the moral 
development of any people ; namely, — that it depend 
on itself, not on a foreign power. It made us our own 
masters. But it left one permanent source of demoral- 
izing influence, the institution of slavery, which neces- 
sarily must corrupt the whole nation so long as it re- 
mains. Few men looked on it in that light then; with 
the history of eighty years behind us anybody can see 
it to-day. 

The separation made, the union agreed upon, Amer- 
ica went on, developing old and new ideas into institu- 
tions. For the next fifty years they took three forms. 
They must always take the same three, namely, — theo- 
logical, political, social. First see what happened in 
the theological way. The understanding enlightened 
by philosophy protested against a theology which was at 
variance with human reason ; a theological revolution 
took place, the child of these new ideas. Two new 
sects sprang into being, the Unitarians and the Univer- 
salists. One said the trinity is not in the Bible; the 
other said there is no hell between Genesis and Revela- 
tion. Both Unitarian and Universalist clung to the 
main doctrines of the old theology; both rested on the 
theology of the Bible ; miraculous revelation they rested 
upon, vicarious salvation they looked forward to; but 
they broke with the trinity and with hell. The old 
church reacted against both, and smote them with its 
two-edged sword, so far as its aged arm could wield 
that. But all the sects felt the influence of that revolu- 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 357 



tion. The popular theology — ice formed in the dark 
ages — was melting under the fierce democratic sun of 
America, and the stream of humanity broke it to pieces 
and carried great lumps far out to sea. Harvard Col- 
lege went over to free thought, and was on the side of 
progress and humanity, strange as it may seem, and 
one of the very foremost clergymen was by her chosen 
public professor of theology. Even Harvard College 
— moved in the stream of time as the world glides by, as 
it is now — broke with the old tradition. 

Still there was no new foundation for morals, there 
was no new philosophy. The sensational took a 
stronger hold. On the one side was the sensational 
philosophy, which did not admit of disinterested virtue ; 
on the other hand was the old supernatural tradition, 
miraculous authority ; there was nothing between the 
two. What of human consciousness did not come from 
sensationalism was either declared to be a whimsy or else 
to be a matter of revelation, which man received through 
miraculous communication from God. Religion must 
rest on a miraculous tradition ; politics, science, busi- 
ness, must rest on human philosophy. These two 
barques, the old traditional ship of the church, the sen- 
sational philosophy of the human understanding, these 
were all. In the old church barque was total depravity, 
an angry God, vicarious redemption, eternal damna- 
tion, and the devil. In the other was freedom of 
thought, a limited virtue, no disinterested benevolence, 
no certainty of immortality. There were man — to 
carry out this figure — floating about on rafts ill- 
joined, struggling as they could; and here and there a 
stout swimmer, depending on his own arms, struck off 
alone. That was the state of things brought about in 
the theological world. 



358 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



Politically there was a continual advance of the peo- 
ple, the magistrate becoming less and less, the mass of 
the people more and more. Less reverence was paid to 
the hat of the magistrate. Let me give an example. 
When John Hancock was chosen first governor, the 
office of governor of Massachusetts was deemed so im- 
portant that the parish church wherein he worshipped 
partitioned off his pew from the rest, and put a green 
curtain a foot and a half high all around the top, in 
order to screen the governor from the vulgar eyes of 
the rest of mankind. That was the reverence paid to 
the governor in 1780 or earlier. Then when Samuel 
Adams, a poor man, became governor, a coach must be 
given him by his wealthy friends. Now the governor 
sits anywhere on the platform at meetings or in a pew 
not distinguished from others; he rides from his house 
in the country to his business in town, not in a coach 
given by his friends, but in an omnibus with the rest 
of men. It would have amazed our fathers, — that fa- 
miliarity of the governor with the people ; and they 
would have said " The people cannot be ruled, for the 
governor strikes hands with common men." All that 
has absolutely passed away. Presently laws became 
milder, suffrage was universal, the individual was more 
respected. 

Compare the state constitutions made during the 
largest half of the Revolutionary War with the 
amendments added since. Slavery disappeared from 
New England, all feudalism vanished. The people 
with slow, but irresistible logic, were canning out 
their first principles. But still a vicious theology, and 
an insufficient philosophy, retarded the political devel- 
opment of the people. If } t ou think wrong about God 
or man, the vicious thought deforms all the rest of 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 359 



your thinking. You can never escape the consequences 
of a first principle. 

A similar change went on socially. The old notion of 
distinguished birth sat on the hills of Boston and looked 
longingly towards England, till its brain grew be- 
wildered; and the devil cast out from the swine entered 
in, and it ran violently down a steep place and perished 
in the Atlantic, beyond hope of recovery. Reverence 
for money took its place. The question ceased to be 
asked " How much pertaining to this man is dead and 
buried ? " and this other question was asked, " What is 
there belonging to him which is alive and above 
ground? 99 Only the antiquary asked after his father 
and mother; the practical man asked, "What talents 
has the man got in him? " Industrial democracy took 
the place of the old theocratic and military aristocracy. 
The career was open to talent, and the question was not 
asked, " Is this man the son of a runner? " but, " What 
feet has he here to run on himself? " Still the vicious 
theology and inadequate philosophy hindered our so- 
cial development. 

So things went on for fifty years, and during that 
time great changes were silently taking place. Revo- 
lution is a continual epidemic in America. I mean to 
say that is regular growth with us, which in Europe 
would be called a revolution. A change took place in 
our forms of industry which brought other changes with 
it. At first New England cultivated her poor soil, and 
took fish. Her exports were cattle from her soil, tim- 
ber from her forests, and fish from her waters. Her 
manufactures were but little, though always surpassing 
those of the rest of the nation. Commerce was the only 
calling by which great fortunes could be accumulated. 



360 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



The farmers were poor, the manufacturers not rich. 
Men with small means took to making " New England 
Notions " — paper, hats, iron ware, wooden ware and the 
like. There was no great accumulation of men or capi- 
tal engaged in manufactures. The mechanics wrought 
each for himself. There was developed a great in- 
dividuality of thought, a great freedom of character, a 
very stout manhood, not very much money. Boston 
was the centre of commerce; all the great fortunes were 
here. She was called the " Athens of America " — a 
commercial Athens, with a strong love for literature, not 
much for science. Philadelphia was the city of science, 
where Dr. Franklin and Dr. Rush kindled a scientific 
spirit. Boston was the town for letters. Here the 
ablest men, who had obtained the superior culture, — 
what colleges can give — went to some literary profes- 
sion, were doctors, lawyers, ministers, writers, or politi- 
cians ; they did not go to commerce or manufactures. 
After a time the general policy of America changed; 
for the South, who always hated the more prosperous 
North, sought to ruin our commerce by building up a 
protective tariff, — a work partly patriotic, wishing 
well to the nation ; partly malignant, wishing ill to New 
England. But the New Englander kept his commer- 
cial action as before, but turned also to manufactures. 
Education had been widely diffused by the most blessed 
of our New England institutions, — the free school; 
and while the South, uneducated and idle, was import- 
ing slaves from abroad or breeding them at home, the 
thoughtful brain of New England created new forces 
out of the powers of nature; wind, water, fire, steam, 
electricity, became our servants. There is not a brook 
which runs down hill but turns a wheel. In the city 
the carpenter's chips do his own planing and sawing. 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 361 



Nay, the baker buys coal-dust and turns it into a power 
which drives a mill, which in three minutes converts 
soft dough into hard and excellent ship-bread. New 
England grew richer by manufactures than by com- 
merce. It was educated labor, free labor, which opened 
the broad lands of New York and the North West Ter- 
ritory, and relieved us from our ungrateful agriculture, 
and turned our thrifty hand to the mechanic arts. The 
tariff secured us a market at home ; railroads and steam- 
boats gave a new impetus to activity. The population 
crowded into towns, shortening their lives, increasing 
their wealth. Capitalists turned their attention from 
commerce to manufactures ; great corporations wrought 
with joint money, — great companies with allied 
strength; there was an organization of dollars, and an 
organization of men. Great fortunes were accumu- 
lated, not only by commerce, but by manufactures also. 
The " Athens of America," which had been the mother 
city of commerce, became also the metropolis of me- 
chanic art; and as a consequence Boston has rapidly 
increased to a hundred and sixty or seventy thousand 
men, while Worcester, Springfield, Lynn, Lowell, Law- 
rence, Manchester, and a hundred smaller towns, count 
their children by thousands. Improved machinery 
enables one man in his life to do more and accumulate 
more than five or six in past times in their life. This 
increased the amount of wealth in all New England. 
The houses, streets, food, carriages, the halls in which 
men meet for debate or worship, the school books, the 
musical instruments, the whole aspect of the people, — 
all shows this wide distribution and rapid increase of 
riches. 

However, whilst many wrought in the employment 
of the few, as in manufacturing corporations, the 



362 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



employer began to dictate to the operatives their the- 
ology, — what they should think about God, and their 
politics, — how they should vote. The overseer wished 
to set a pattern of theology, as well as for weaving, and 
to do the voting for the mill. The head of New Eng- 
land began to be a little turned by money. But our 
nature we cannot get rid of; the religious origin of 
New England still came up ; a good deal of the old con- 
science was left, the old respect for individuality. The 
ablest men, however, who got the best education, no 
longer went to the professions or to literature; they 
turned their attention to business, and sought for 
money, only nothing else. 

Once the pulpit, with its Bible, ruled New England, 
and everybody saw who the ruler was. It was a man 
with an old-fashioned hat, a wig, a staid, sober, re- 
spectable man. What he said on Sunday he was an- 
swerable for all the week. Everybody knew him. By 
and by the counting room, with its money, ruled New 
England ; and the editor, with his anonymous criticism, 
advice, prophecy, often with his anonymous lie. There 
is this difference between being ruled by ministers and 
being ruled by editors — I recommend being ruled by 
neither — the minister stands in a place where he can 
be seen, and he is known, and is answerable for his 
opinion. 

The editor is anonymous ; and we are ruled by 
some penny-a-liner, whose opinion, were he seen in 
the broad day, no man would respect. It is often so, not 
always. All other professions became tributary to the 
mercantile ; the lawyer, doctor, minister, the men of sci- 
ence and letters have become the cherubim and seraphim 
and the three archangels who stood before the golden 
throne of the merchant, and continually cried, " Holy, 
holy, holy is the Almighty Dollar ! " 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 363 



So things went on, and so came to pass in some fifty 
years. Take it all in all, it was a very great step of 
progress. Then sundry new elements got introduced 
to the consciousness of New England. A great devel- 
opment of science began to take place, — the study of 
material nature. Franklin began it, English books 
stimulated us to it, men with a natural tendency to 
geology, botany, astronomy, stirred the mind of New 
England in that direction. Literature began to be 
looked upon as an ornament, not a necessity; and men 
said it was only the fringe upon the garment of hu- 
manity. Suppose it is ; if Homer, Dante, Shake- 
speare, Milton, are but fringes, if Liebnitz, Newton, 
Bacon, Kant, are but tassels — what do you suppose 
the great garment is, whereof these are only fringes 
and tassels? I rejoice in the application of science and 
the study thereof. In 1832 Dr. Spurzheim brought to 
America Gall's system of phrenology. It came at a 
time when the old traditional Calvinistic metaphysics 
had lost its power, and no comprehensive scheme of 
philosophy had taken its place. It coincided admi- 
rably with the sensational philosophy, which was the 
basis on which our superior education had rested — one 
step in the carrying out of that philosophy. It was 
brought by a man of great intellectual power, of re- 
markable philanthropy, of the most beautiful charac- 
ter and attractive disposition; and it gave a new im- 
pulse to the study of man's body, and of the material 
conditions on which life, health, happiness, and public 
and private virtue depend ; and it was of very great 
service, for it caused attention to be drawn to the causes 
of sickness, crime, and vice, to the conditions of hu- 
man health, long life, virtue and the like; and a great 
many valuable institutions are to be traced directly to 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



the fertile brain of that great-hearted German who 
brought another man's thought here. At a later day, 
within ten years, another very distinguished man, Mr. 
Agassiz, has come to give a further stimulus to this 
study of science. One day these two minds are to have 
a great influence in our development in America. 

But a more spiritual philosophy began to take the 
place of the sensational, one not founded at all on the 
traditional claims of miraculous revelation, but on the 
spiritual nature of man himself. Here are the forces 
which aided in that great work : — the writings of 
Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Wordsworth ; of Cousin, who so 
eloquently reports the thoughts of the great German 
thinkers; and still more the great German thinkers 
themselves, who are philosophers, theologians, his- 
torians, and Biblical critics. The old spiritual authors 
of England were reprinted here — though out of the 
market for a hundred years, — such as Ralph Cudworth 
and other spiritual thinkers from the bosom of the sev- 
enteenth century in England. So there rose a new 
school of metaphysical philosophy, and it agreed with 
the theological sects in this — There is a spiritual ele- 
ment in man! It differed from them by declaring that 
that spiritual element in man was not miraculous in its 
origin and development, but went normally to its work. 
While the church said " The Holy Ghost only is di- 
vine," these philosophers said " The Holy Spirit is also 
human." Here belong the writings of Dr. Channing, 
and, still more metaphysical, the masterly speakings 
and writings of Mr. Emerson. Here was a powerful 
force, that of ideas, It took a strong hold on man's 
mind, and its new activity appeared in the theological, 
the political, and the social forms as never before. 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 365 



The old theology was rejected. Science annihilated 
the old theological earth ; down went the theological 
heaven — every astronomer saw straight through it. 
Biblical criticism showed that the Bible was like other 
books — with good in it, to be accepted ; evil in it, not 
to be taken. History showed that religion sprang up 
all around, that it was not the monopoly of the Jew 
nor the Christian; but was shared universally by the 
human race. Metaphysics demonstrated the religious 
and moral element in man, as imperishable as the in- 
tellectual or the affectional. Theology was no longer 
a mysterious science; it was like all other schemes of 
thought, amenable to human nature ; and the theology 
of the churches was sent back to learn its lesson again, 
which it had so imperfectly boggled over. The truth 
of a doctrine was to be looked at, and not its Scriptural 
character only. 

In the present century there have appeared in Amer- 
ica two great ministers, who have had a remarkable in- 
fluence. One was William Ellery Channing, who be- 
longed to these more spiritual men, though he still 
clung to authority. He struck at the Samson of the 
ecclesiastical organizations, and brought down the 
trinity. The other was Hosea Ballou, a man who 
rested on the sensational philosophy, and wrought a 
work more important, deeper, and more widely extended 
even than Channing. Dr. Channing had a better 
philosophy and training, but whilst he brought down 
the trinitarian Samson, Father Ballou threw his stone 
into the Goliath of the church, into the doctrine of eter- 
nal damnation, and the giant lay there, his head cut 
off. Both of these rested on a miraculous authority. 

But other men now go beyond them, and they are 
not content with the old Unitarian denial, they take hu- 



366 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



man nature as their scripture, and teach positive doc- 
trines respecting God and man, and the relation be- 
tween them. The two old boats which I just spoke of 
would not hold half the passengers ; so a new one is put 
upon the line, with a new and more spiritual philoso- 
phy. All doctrines are to be discussed on the plane of 
human nature. A new positive theology begins to ap- 
pear, with doctrines based on human nature, legitimated 
on human reason, which approve themselves to the 
moral, the affectional and the religious sense. A deeper 
and wider scheme of morals springs out of the spiritual 
and moral nature of man, and new duties are recom- 
mended, — not in the name of selfishness, as the sensa- 
tional philosophy taught, not in the name of revela- 
tion, as the old church scheme taught ; but in the name 
of man. A new idea of God, wholly strange to the 
churches hitherto, is developed, of God as infinitely per- 
fect; of religion as the normal use of every faculty of 
the body and spirit, every power we possess, of mo- 
rality as a fact, not of revelation, but of consciousness, 
here intuitive, demonstrative there; the eternal life be- 
ginning now, religion not only to prepare for the fu- 
ture heaven, but making a present heaven now and 
here. The cloud of mystery rolls up from the the- 
ological fold, and there is left the beautiful arena of 
human life spread out before the human eye. Here is 
a revolution in theology greater than that wrought by 
Luther, greater than that of Jesus himself, — for the 
pole is shifted from the old theology to the nature of 
man, wherein God permanently incarnates and reveals 
his truth. 

The new idea must take political form also. All men 
are of one race, human ; distinction of color is noth- 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 367 



ing; all are of one humanity, and distinction of na- 
tionality is gone. The question is not asked, " Where 
was a man born ? " but, " Was he actually born 
anywhere? " If so, if born at all, he is born to human 
nature, with all the natural, essential and inalienable 
rights of humanity. Privileges are personal accidents ; 
rights are of human nature, and exceptional privi- 
lege must give place to universal right. Then woman- 
kind is the equal of mankind, — diverse but equivalent ; 
she has the same natural rights as man. Their 
spheres may be different, their bodily and mental or- 
ganizations are dissimilar, but her individual freedom 
is equal to his, his to hers. So she must have the same 
social, political, ecclesiastical rights as man. Thus the 
new philosophy will affect all the relations of people 
with people, government with government, class with 
class. 

The same ideas must affect society. Work is the 
coin in which everything is bought and sold, the con- 
sideration which mankind is to pay for what it wishes to 
get. In God's great shop, the universe of matter, man- 
kind is to earn its own living; and so each man 
and woman. If not, then the living is at the expense 
of mankind. So work is to be the honorable business 
of each, and whoso is the most useful in the highest de- 
partments of service is the most honorable man ; he who 
does the most good for mankind is the noble man, the 
object of reverence and veneration. All social institu- 
tions are amenable to men, men now living. A demo- 
cratic Rhadamanthus is to sit in judgment on all insti- 
tutions of the past. Society as a whole owes duties to 
each person. It is the military duty of the whole to 
defend the parts, so recognized in times of feudal vio- 
lence; but in our industrial democracy, society owes 



368 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



each person the means of life, on condition of such work 
as that person can perform. Hence grow up the alms- 
houses of New England, — monuments of our benevo- 
lence, showing how far we have got on; monuments 
also of our lack of skill to organize men so that they 
shall feed themselves. Then there must be schools for 
all, — for each child not only has the right to military 
defence from violence, and personal defence from 
starvation, but also the right to a defence from igno- 
rance, a right to such education as society can afford. 
Everything is gradual; first the right is only conceded 
to boys; the girls, as being of the inferior class, did 
not require it ; then it is granted to the girls ; then 
more and more, and so on indefinitely. Then jails 
must be places of correction, amendment and love, not 
of torment ; the gallows must come down ; imprisonment 
for debt must disappear ; the state must open a kind 
eye to every discharged convict. Pains must be taken 
to prevent pauperism, ignorance, crime, drunkenness — 
which costs us more than all the fires and shipwrecks 
of property in all New England; this, which is to New 
England what slavery is to the south, must be checked, 
prevented and finally put down. The science of the 
age must be applied to life, to educate the mind, con- 
science, affections, and religious power, and make us 
comfortable, healthy, rich, virtuous, manly, happy. 
Even the old churches leave off for a time making such 
a fuss about the soul, and take care of the poor man's 
body, and all the denominations have gone to work in 
this humane direction. It is very curious to see how 
the transcendentalist, with his ideas and metaphysics, 
gathered from the study of the soul, and the physiolo- 
gist, with his ideas and facts, gathered from the study 
of the body, work side by side at their great task of 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 369 



love. Both are right ; the physiologist learned the gos- 
pel from the body, as the metaphysician from the soul, 
and both preach the same gospel. So the phrenologist 
and the transcendentalist, wide as heaven and earth 
asunder, walk arm and arm through the streets of com- 
mon life, and labor for the welfare of common human- 
ity. Then attempts are made to reconstruct society on 
the principle of co-operative industry. New ideas of 
marriage spring from the new philosophy. 

All these things look revolutionary. But it is revo- 
lution after a peaceful sort, in the spirit of the Sermon 
on the Mount. " Well," you say, " they come from 
Christianity." Very well, they come from the Chris- 
tian religion, no doubt, not the Christian theology. 
The Christian religion, — it is human religion, love of 
God and love of man : the Christian theology, — that 
is Catholicism, Protestantism, Trinitarianism, Uni- 
tarianism, Universalism. These great ideas never came 
from that. They come from the great soul of human 
nature, animated and inspired by the Infinite God, out 
of which came the voice of prophets old, sibyls, poets, 
philosophers; from the bosom that bore Jesus of 
Nazareth, — child of God, son of man also. 

Now you never excite one pole of the human battery 
but the other is also roused. In the last ten years in 
New England there has been a great development of 
selfish opposition to all these humane movements of the 
age. Call that opposition Hunkerism ; call the op- 
ponents Hunkers, — who are of three denominations, 
the hunkers of theology, of politics and of society? 
Boston is the metropolis of hunkerism. Its suburbs, — 
Roxbury, Cambridge, Salem — are the tools of Bos- 
ton, Boston their head; they do as it bids. Then its 
1—24 



370 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



vassal towns — Lowell, Lawrence, and a few others — 
are under overseers, and of course do as they are bid, 
or have continued to do so until by a spasmodic effort 
they freed themselves. Talk about the Catholics vot- 
ing as the bishop tells ! reproach the Catholics for it ! 
You and I do the same thing. There are a great many 
bishops who have never had a cross on their bosom, nor a 
mitre on their head, who appeal not to the authority of 
the Pope at Rome, but to the Almighty Dollar, a pope 
much nearer home. Boston has been controlled by a 
few capitalists, lawyers and other managers, who told 
the editors what to say and the preachers what to think. 
Once Boston was liberal in theology, politics and social 
matters. Do not forget that underneath the Boston 
of 1850 and '55 there is a buried Boston of 1750, '65, 
'75 ; the Boston of James Otis and Samuel Adams un- 
derlies the Boston of Marshall Tukey. 2 The Boston 
of Belknap and Channing, who reached up towards the 
infinite God, is fifty years older than the Boston of 
Nehemiah Adams, 3 who defends the institution of 
slavery. We must remember this. How came it so? 
In 1830 Boston had sixty thousand inhabitants ; now it 
has more than a hundred and sixty thousand. Many 
came from the country, able-bodied and able-headed 
men. They brought the Calvinistic theology with 
them, the illiberal theology which still broods over the 
hills and country towns. So there was an importation 
of theological hunkerism, which changed the character 
of the town. The illiberal denominations have grown 
apace, the liberal have been checked, within thirty 
years. Even the Unitarian churches have caught the 
malaria, and are worse than those who deceived them. 
The baneful influences of that material philosophy and 
ethics which destroy, here show themselves. While the 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 371 



theological movement was only denial, many men en- 
tered into the new boat and became Unitarians and 
Universalists ; but by and by, when new duty was de- 
manded, they were offended, and said, " We left the 
old in order to escape from religion, but you demand it 
of us. Mr. Minister, you have killed your own devil, 
you cannot scare us any longer," — the man appealed 
to miraculous authority — " your theology would not 
hold the devil, the trinity and eternal torment, and 
there is nothing plainer in the Bible than those things." 
That was the answer made by these men. In addition to 
that the culture of taste took the place of the culture of 
the soul and conscience. Beauty of dress, of speech, of 
house, coach, furniture, — this was put before the aus- 
tere piety of womanhood and manhood; and conven- 
tional manners, very beautiful, made all men equally 
respectable, as a handsome dress is designed to make 
all men and women equally fair ; and as dress is the 
vicarious atonement whereby ugliness hopes for salva- 
tion, so conventional manners were the atonement 
whereby vice hoped to appear as well as virtue. It 
takes place in all matters. Besides, money drew men 
away. Money, with social respectability, which is its 
consequence, was the great object of life. Moreover, 
the old source of permanent demoralization continued 
to corrupt the general government and its officers, and 
hence the merchants, editors, and of course the pul- 
pits. So there grew up a mighty harvest of hunker- 
ism. The reactionaries feared, as they knew no re- 
ligion but that and the trinity, lest the people should 
lose all religion. Nobody feared for himself, each for 
his neighbor. Thence came hypocritical defences of 
the Bible by men who denied its universal truths, but 
who stood up and defended its letter. Hence came the 



372 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



hatred of Charming, hence the attacks on Emerson — 
who has preached the gospel of humanity in words as 
fair as they are likewise true. Then they trembled at 
the application of the Christian religion to slavery. 
They wished to apply Christian theology to it till they 
turned dark in the face ; they must never touch it with 
one of the fingers of the Christian religion. Hence 
the honor bestowed on every man in this city who loves 
slavery. 4 They hated the revision and amendment of 
the laws, and hence wished to retain the ugliest features 
of our old constitution, — imprisonment for debt, the 
gallows and the like. They were afraid lest property, 
should be brought in peril as in Europe, forgetting 
that in Europe property stands on the wrong end of 
the pyramid. There is only one kind of property in 
America in any peril; that is property in man; every- 
thing else is safe, for it has a broad foundation. Most 
of all they are afraid of woman's emancipation; and so 
attempt to smother woman with kisses. No high school 
for girls! " There are so many pupils we cannot have 
a school, (that was the reason given) 5 and the more 
woman knows the less valuable she will be, and the less 
contented with her present condition. Educate a man, 
it improves his condition ; but a woman only scolds and 
scowls." That was the statement. Men were afraid 
of Channing before he died, and cursed him by their 
Gods, because, taking his high ideas of humanity, he 
said, " There must be no drunkenness, pauperism must 
be done away with, we must free the slave." This is 
the cause of the hostility to Mr. Emerson and every 
brave, earnest minister who stands up his whole length 
and preaches the Christian religion, not the theology in 
that abused name. 

That is the state of things in Boston, in New Eng- 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 373 



land, this day. On the one side is presented as an ideal 
such a form of religion, such a deep and wide philoso- 
phy, as the world never saw nor dreamed of; such a 
philanthropy as knows no race, counts it the duty of 
genius to enlighten the common mind with science and 
piety, to heal and soothe and bless the sorrows of the 
suffering world, with a theology as broad as human 
nature, an idea of God as absolutely perfect, of man 
as the noblest child of God ; with a magnificent future 
before him, to be wrought out by his own toil. 

On the other side is the old theology, with its miracu- 
lous revelation, its vicarious salvation; the old philoso- 
phy, with nothing in the mind which was not first in 
the senses ; the old politics, hostility between people and 
people ; the old form of religion, with its angry God, its 
man totally depraved, its human history full of ca- 
price, without purpose and without meaning. 

These are the two antipodes between which we stand. 
Between these you and I are to shape our lives and 
form our characters. It is under these influences that 
you are to train up your children. Which will you 
serve? What do you wish to be? If you want the 
mere honor of men, to be put into office by Whigs, 
Democrats, Know Nothings ; if you wish to be shame- 
fully and monstrously rich, and have a very easy time 
and feed fat only your flesh, — it is plain what you are 
to do. You are to strike hands with all that is old, 
to believe as little as you can, pretend as much as possi- 
ble, and live a mean and tawdry life. Verily, I say 
unto a young man, if he tries that, he shall have his 
reward. I have been so long an observer and have seen 
so many spectacles of this, that I could give great coun- 
sel, and tell the widest, straightest road to what I call 
the devil, to the ruin of manhood. 



374 MATTER AND SPIRIT 

Rut if you wish to have a reasonable competence for 
reasonable work, an abundance for abundant work, a 
superfluity for extraordinary work, if you wish to be 
men and women, with God's image bright in you, and 
the same inspiration which flowered and bloomed so 
fragrantly into Jesus of Nazareth, and prophets and 
sibyls and poets of old times, — there is another thing 
to be done. Then you are to ask in your own soul, 
What is truest, what is sweetest, fairest, the most pleas- 
ing to God? and live it out in your life. You shall 
have what you need here, and hereafter the Infinite 
Mother's hand shall be laid upon you, — Come, my be- 
loved son, inherit the good things prepared for you! 



8 



Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit. — Matthew vii, 

ir. 

Last Sunday I said something of the condition of 
Boston and New England in respect to the fundamental 
principles of morals, aiming to show what were the 
great intellectual forces which had wrought hitherto in 
the development of this people who have settled New 
England and have had such a wide influence on the rest 
of the country. To-day I ask your attention to con- 
sider some of the present and ultimate consequences of 
this state of things. At present the condition is rather 
painful in many particulars. 

Here are four great educational forces in the land 
which help form the character of the people; namely, 
the ecclesiastical action of the people, represented by 
the churches, with their theology, with their ministers 
and other persons who control the organization in the 
name of religion. Next is the political action of the 
people, represented by the state, federal or local, with 
its congresses, constitutions, laws, courts, offices, and 
so on. Third is the literary action of the people, rep- 
resented by the press, the newspapers, quarterlies, 
monthlies, books, all sorts of things that get printed. 
Fourth, there is the industrial action, represented by 
business, agriculture, fishing, mining, manufactures, 
buying and selling, all forms of work not political, 
ecclesiastical or literary. 

See the effect of this state of things on the ec- 
clesiastical action, — for this, though subtle, is the most 
powerful of all; and if a mark is made in the church, 

375 



376 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



it is presently made everywhere else, for good or ill. 
Not many years ago the ministers were the ruling class 
of New England, and they long continued the most 
powerful class, using their influence as other men do, 
sometimes well, sometimes ill. They took the initiative 
in all measures that pertained to the church, or meant 
to do so, and in some other measures. The power which 
they exercised then came naturally enough, for the 
ablest men and best educated went to that calling. 
They had almost a monopoly of superior education, 
and all the early colleges founded in New England 
were dedicated to Christ and the church, not to business 
and what they called the world. And when you select 
the ablest men out of the community and give them the 
best education the community can afford, and put them 
in a place where they speak to men in the name of 
conscience and God twice every week, you see that they 
presently become exceedingly powerful. What added 
to their influence was this : — there were no newspapers, 
or but few, not many books, scarcely any public meet- 
ings, save on Sunday and church days, when only the 
ministers spoke; there were no lectures save what the 
minister gave and on theological subjects. Accord- 
ingly, the ministers became and continued the leading 
body of men. At first sight it seems a little strange 
that whilst the ablest men went to this calling, got the 
best education, had the widest swing, none to molest or 
make them afraid, — it seems a little surprising at first 
that none of the great ideas which have made America 
what it is came out of the minister's mouth. It is not 
surprising when you bestow a second thought on the 
matter, and remember that the minister was busy with 
his theology, not so much with piety or morality? not 
with science, the science of life, — but with appeasing 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 377 



the wrath of God, with preparing man not to live 
here, but hereafter. 

At that time there was not much doubt. Everybody 
was supposed to believe in the existence of the devil, in 
eternal damnation, in the doctrine of the trinity, and 
all the great church doctrines. A hundred years ago 
men selected the biggest tree in all the New England 
woods as the pillar for the meeting-house; they took 
great pains with the seasoning of the timber, to hew 
and groove and carve it into the proper shape, and then 
were long in putting it in place, and had it stand on a 
broad foundation, plumb and perpendicular. Then it 
stood a good while, and held up something; but now 
things have changed, and scarcely any tree is thought 
too little for that purpose, scarce any preparation and 
seasoning too small and short. Business has the first 
pick of the New England woods, the tallest trees, — if 
not the soundest, at least the stoutest; then politics 
gleans after it; next science and literature cull what 
suits them; and finally the church comes in for the 
leavings. There are exceptional men of power who go 
into the pulpit, but the general rule is what I state. 
Once the head of the college said to the half-dozen 
ablest men in the class, " You must become ministers ; 
the Lord wants you, the church needs you, — come ! " 
and they went. Now the friends of the young man 
say, " You have too much talent for the ministry; you 
had better buy and sell, be a machinist, engineer, sailor, 
merchant, farmer, blacksmith." What an odds! 

Beside that, the means of education are now widely 
spread, through schools and colleges. Lectures on the 
most important matters get delivered by the ablest 
thinkers that New England bears, and who have the 



378 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



most astonishing power of speech wherein to set forth 
their thought. Newspapers go everywhere; we have 
more elaborate journals of our own, of science and let- 
ters, and the five ablest from old England are reprinted 
here and go everywhere. Business forces the people to 
think; and the consequence is a very wonderful en- 
lightenment of the understanding of the people. The 
minister is no longer the ablest man by nature or cul- 
ture, and where everything is left free his position be- 
comes less and less authoritative. He cannot en- 
force his words by his own authority : he no longer dares 
say, " I say the thing is so, and therefore you must 
believe it ! " If he does say, " I say it is so ! 99 when 
the minister is not a man powerful by nature or cul- 
ture, or training to long thought, who is there that sub- 
mits to his dictation ? No man. 

With the general enlightenment there comes doubt 
of the theological doctrines of the trinity, of hell, and 
of the infallible Scripture. The minister said at first, 
" All morality and religion depend on the miraculous 
revelation. Beside that there is nothing but the ma- 
terialistic philosophy," the sensational, which I spoke 
of last Sunday, — " and that," quoth he, " does not 
justify religion, not even morality, not a belief in the 
immortality of man's soul." He says, " If you leave the 
miraculous Bible aside, then the mind of man is noth- 
ing but a refuge of lies, and you land you know not 
where, and you are sure to perish." 

But the old theology was weakened. Men would not 
accept the miraculous revelation they had been bred 
to, and outside of that there was no foundation for 
religion and morality which they assented to. Calvin- 
ism frightened men into some reverence for the law of 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 379 



God which was laid down in the Bible and forced them 
to believe that it was laid down nowhere else. But 
when the Unitarian and the Universalist wrenched the 
two-edged sword of the trinity and hell from the hand of 
Calvinism, then men began to doubt whether the Bible 
— which had taught as revelation the trinity and eter- 
nal damnation — was a good authority or an absolute 
refuge for anything whatsoever. So these men who 
moved out of the Calvinistic meeting-house went over 
to the shop of the sensational morals, as taught by Mr. 
Paley, and there everything was for sale, and virtue 
was the doing certain things for the sake of happi- 
ness here, if you could get it, and the certainty of 
happiness hereafter; it was not doing what was right 
because it was right and in obedience to the great God 
whose word right is. Last Sunday I spoke of the sen- 
sational philosophy, and showed its beginning and what 
it led to. Mr. Paley incorporated into a book, admir- 
ably written, the morals which come of this. That was 
made the text book of morals in almost all the colleges 
and high schools and other seminaries of education in 
New England ; and the pernicious influence of the thing 
is as apparent to-day, to a man who looks for such 
things, as the pavements in the streets, or the bricks 
in the houses. From that state of things there follows 
a profound demoralization of the three great educa- 
tional forces, the ecclesiastical, the political and the lit- 
erary action of the leading sects, the leading parties, 
the leading literature, commercial or political, yes, of 
the great merchants also, merchant traders and mer- 
chant manufacturers. Worship of the almighty dollar 
is taking the place of worship of the Calvinistic God. 
Let me show how this demoralization appears. 

I said last Sunday that at the formation of the 



380 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



American Constitution, one source of permanent de- 
moralization was left, — slavery. That is a denial of 
the first principle of American politics, the equality of 
all men is their natural right ; a denial also of the first 
principle of Christian religion, which is to love your 
neighbor as yourself ; not of the Christian theology, 
which is salvation without works. It is a denial of the 
first principle of human morality, which says render 
to all their due, justice to every man. For the last 
thirty years this institution of slavery has been the 
touch-stone to prove the character of institutions and 
men. The slaveholders wished to extend it ; it was sup- 
posed to be for their pecuniary and political interest to 
do so, a part of the worship of the dollar. But as 
slavery was a violation of the natural law of God and 
the principles of the Christian religion, of natural mor- 
ality and Christianity — so far as that is religion, — 
these must be shoved aside. So the leading politicians 
declared, " There is no law of God above the statute 
of the land." Then as a second thing, " Religion has 
nothing to do with politics." The leading men of busi- 
ness added a third dogma, " Religion has nothing to 
do with business." The political and commercial jour- 
nals added a fourth oracle, " Religion has nothing to 
do with the press, or literature, or science." Such 
declarations as these would not have been possible a 
hundred years ago, when the old Calvinistic theology 
was in full force. What if men had said these things 
under the guns of such marksmen as Edwards and 
Hopkins, who had the artillery of Calvinism at 
their command. When men believed there was a devil 
and felt sure of eternal damnation, nobody dared say 
there was no higher law of God. What makes it worse 
is, the leading sects of Christians fell in with this four- 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 381 



fold iniquity. Sometimes they silently acquiesced, and 
let the falsehood go, nobody opposing it; sometimes 
they protected these doctrines openly, and very often 
laid down principles which led to this conclusion, know- 
ing very well what they did as they uttered it. So there 
followed a profound demoralization of the great theo- 
logical sects ; of the great parties, with their politicians, 
their courts, their judges, their offices; a great demor- 
alization of the leading journals and much other lit- 
erature; and likewise of the leading men of business. 
It is painful to say this, and it may sound harsh; but 
I doubt if in the last five years you could have found 
anywhere in the least civilized parts of Christendom 
these four modes of action more deeply demoralized 
than they have been here. 

Two things show this demoralization with painful 
fidelity. When the fugitive slave bill passed Congress 
in 1850, though everybody who had a thought in his 
head and a heart in his bosom knew it was unconstitu- 
tional, and every simplest man knew it was at variance 
with God's constitution of the universe, yet the chief 
sects said not one word against it. The chief leaders of 
these sects said, " Men must obey the law, — conscience 
say what it may — the statute must be kept ! 99 I do 
not know how many men declared there was nothing in 
Christianity which was hostile to American slavery, or 
hostile to the fugitive slave bill; they meant there was 
nothing in what they called the Christian theology hos- 
tile to it ; but they were understood to mean, and meant 
to be understood to mean, there was nothing in the 
Christian religion. It is painful to refer to the exam- 
ples of those men whom I have so often held up before 
you in this place; their words and conduct is familiar 



382 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



enough. When men were kidnapped at New York and 
Boston, prominent ministers in their pulpits lifted up 
their hands, and in prayer thanked God that that wicked 
deed had been done. You know the conduct of the 
courts, federal and state, of the leading newspapers, 
commercial and political, the leading merchants of New 
York and Boston, of the leading colleges throughout 
New England. That is one of the two things proving 
the point. 

Next, when Mr. Webster died, more than a hundred 
and fifty sermons were printed which represented him 
as a model Christian, a man after God's own heart. 
The profligacy of his private life, surpassed only by the 
utter demoralization of the latter part of his public ca- 
reer, did not take down one jot or title of the perfect 
Christian character ascribed to him in these produc- 
tions. Dr. Franklin has a bad reputation in the Amer- 
ican churches ; Dr. Channing had this benediction from 
orthodox newspapers when he died — that doubtless he 
went to the place of eternal torment to punish him for 
the sin of denying that Jesus of Nazareth was the Je- 
hovah who had existed forever and ever, and who made 
earth and heaven. But Mr. Webster was placed by the 
American church in the niche of sainthood far higher 
than was claimed for Franklin or Channing, or all the 
philanthropists who have blessed the land. These facts 
prove the profound demoralization of these four 
forces. 

We had relied on the American church to rebuke the 
sin of the nation ; but no church was ever falser, I think, 
than the American in 1850, '51 and '52. I confess this 
amazed me, this growth of what I call hunkerism; but 
what I said last Sunday traces very clearly the growth 
of that plant to the seed deposited in the soil, and I am 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 383 



now astonished that I was astonished then, and wonder 
that I did not see what is now so clear in cause, process 
and result. Pardon me that I understood my calling 
so ill, and had observed so poorly, not seeing the con- 
sequence in the cause, and the fruit in the seed. 

That is the present consequence of this state of 
things. But the ultimate consequence of this state, 
the influence of the introduction of these new ideas 
of God, of man, and of the relation between the two, — 
that is likewise clear enough. It is easy to foresee 
what the results will be a hundred years hence, or a 
thousand; it is not hard to foresee what they will be 
fifty or twenty-five years hence. All those great truths 
which I mentioned last Sunday will incarnate them- 
selves in new institutions, new tools for forming a 
higher mode of human character, and so prepare for a 
wider diffusion of human welfare of a nobler quality. 
I mean to say there is now in process of formation a 
higher ideal of manly and womanly character than was 
ever set afloat before the vision of men, and in due time 
it will produce an actual character corresponding to 
itself. 

See how in two hundred years other great truths 
in the bosom of New England have gendered institu- 
tions like themselves. They have produced a church 
without a bishop, a state without a king, a community 
without a lord, a family without a slave. Two hundred 
years ago, nay, one hundred years ago, it was a dream 
only but no fact anywhere. These new truths will have 
a similar victory ; each one is bound to triumph. There 
will be a period of strife where the new truth contends 
with the old error, then a period of victory of the new 
truth. Then there will be another period of new truths 



384 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



fighting against the errors which you and I cannot see ; 
new truths which our poor eyes cannot get vision of 
will come above the horizon, a higher ideal than we 
dream of take the place of ours, to spread itself into 
actuals, ever greater, ever new. It may seem a little 
bold to state this so confidently, a little rash to under- 
take to demonstrate it by ideas alone. See then how 
it is illustrated in facts which have already been and 
which we are sure of. 

See it first in theological matters. At first there 
was no toleration at all in New England. Boston 
hanged five Quakers, one of them a woman, nailed up 
the door of the Baptist meeting-house, drummed Epis- 
copalians out of town, drove Ann Hutchinson from the 
colony, because the woman dared to think higher than 
any of the ministers was able to go. You and I are 
rather more dangerous than Quakers, Baptists, Episco- 
palians, and Ann Hutchinson; but there is nobody to 
molest nor make us afraid ; toleration is absolute. The 
speculative atheist may come and teach his speculative 
atheism, just as the practical atheist is at liberty to 
practice his. At first the Bible must not be read in any 
New England pulpit. " Our Father " must not be re- 
peated in the pulpit's prayer, — three-quarters of an 
hour long ; the minister might wander all over creation 
in his prayer, and into any little nook of private gossip 
or particular sin, but never pass into that Garden of 
Eden of prayer which we^call the Lord's Prayer. Now 
a man reads the Bible from the pulpit, prays as he has 
the spirit, quotes what he likes from Bible or Koran. 
Once it was a capital offence in Massachusetts to deny 
the trinity, and for a long time a Universalist was not 
allowed his oath in court, and he was thrust out of what 
is called respectable society; it was not thought decent 



RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS 385 



to doubt eternal damnation; the law of Massachusetts 
threatened the gallows to anybody who should deny 
the divine origin of any book of the New Testament 
or the Old. Now the two hundred Universalist min- 
isters in Massachusetts and the three or four hundred 
in New England, are powerful enough to wring a Doc- 
tor of Divinity from the hard hands of the most con- 
servative college in New England. A Cambridge pro- 
fessor of Harvard University declares in public print 
that there is not a line in the Old or New Testament 
that can be considered the word of God. 6 

Who disbelieve in the existence of the devil, who hate 
the doctrine of eternal damnation, and all those other 
peculiar doctrines of the Calvinistic theology ? What is 
more, these are the most religious men in the orthodox 
churches, who love God the most sincerely, and men 
with the deepest, heartiest piety. In theology, the party 
with a new truth has always carried the day. It is not a 
hundred years since lads coming to Boston to serve an 
apprenticeship had this written in their indentures, 
" The boy is not to be allowed to attend the preach- 
ing of Dr. Mayhew," 7 — the stoutest and ablest minister 
that trod the soil of New England for a hundred years. 
Dr. Mayhew was the father of the Unitarians, and 
never saw the children born after his death. Soon as 
the Unitarian sect deserved empire it took it ; and when 
the Unitarian minister has no more to say, the sceptre 
very properly passes into the hands of other men. I 
said last Sunday that illiberalism had come to town and 
prevails. Wait a little while and see what else illib- 
eralism comes to. It will pass away. There has been 
a great theological battle fought, and the new truth 
has gained the victory. No ten Orthodox ministers who 
1—25 



386 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



have lived in the United States ever produced such a 
wide, deep, and lasting influence as Dr. Channing and 
Hosea Ballou ; no ten have made a mark so deep as 
either of these two men — one by Unitarianism, the 
other with the doctrine of eternal salvation at the last 
for all men. 

A great progress likewise appears politically. At 
first only church-members could vote; next only free- 
holders ; then only whoso had sixty pounds. Now every 
man who is out of jail and out of the almshouse may 
vote. You see plainly what will become of the claim 
of woman to vote. It once sounded as ridiculous to 
allow any man to vote who was not a freeholder as now 
for a woman to say she will not be taxed unless rep- 
resented. In the time of the Revolution there was a 
British party who went for British measures, — social 
rank and aristocracy. The old governor of the colony 
had never heard of that " brace of Adamses." If he 
had lived long enough, he would have seen where they 
went to, and who they took along with them. But the 
Tories went to the bottom, while the Patriots swam. 
After the Revolution another party closely akin wanted 
a more arbitrary government; some wanted a strong 
central government, others a limited monarchy; others 
an aristocracy, some a president for life, with a senate 
chosen for life, the president to appoint the governors 
of the several states, each governor to have an abso- 
lute veto on any laws passed by the general court. 
What a state of things that would have been! How 
these men hated the popular vote, election by the peo- 
ple ! One of the prominent men of Massachusetts said 
publicly he would trust an appointment to office to 
luck, rather than to a vote of the people. Said this 
man, one of the wisest and most respectable, " I would 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 387 



rather take at random the tallest or the shortest, the 
oldest or the youngest, the fattest or the leanest, the 
brownest or the fairest, rather than trust to the popular 
election for a governor, senate, representatives to Con- 
gress, or selectmen in my own town." These were 
the men of property and standing who said this. But 
the tories after the Revolution walked the same plank 
which the tories before the Revolution had trod. 
There must be not an aristocracy, but a democracy; a 
government of all the people, of course; but by all 
the people, for all the people, — that is, a progressive 
democracy. Every year the people got more and more 
power. It is seventy-five years since the Constitution 
of Massachusetts was formed; in every twenty-five 
years see what a great advance has been made, — the 
people getting more and more power, and holding it 
in their hands. 

Socially the same progress has been attained. At 
first there was a distinction between gentle and simple ; 
only the gentleman had the title of Mr. Gentility 
rested on an immovable foundation of rock — descent 
from a famous family. Now it rests on a movable 
basis, on money, on office, — things attainable by all. 
Once birth from a distinguished family was the vicari- 
ous atonement for want of manhood, and distin- 
guished birth made all men equally honorable and re- 
spectable. Now it is money which accomplishes all 
this, which has this advantage over birth, that it can 
be acquired by every individual — whereas a man born 
once, being born forever, could not rectify that matter. 
Now the object is to acquire, as once it was to inherit. 
All the families in New England, prominent for money 
to-day, were poor in the last generation ; three-quarters 
of them were poor in this generation. They are 



388 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



ashamed of the fact, no doubt; they should be proud 
that their respectability, based on money, was so re- 
cently won, won by commerce, by manufactures and 
by hard toil. A great social warfare has gone on all 
along, and the new truths carried the day, — not in 
every skirmish, possibly not in every great battle, but 
in every campaign. See what a change, for example, 
has taken place in the amusements of the people. Not 
long ago the popular sports were shooting live ani- 
mals ; men shot turkeys in winter, and boys blackbirds 
in spring; it was the greatest sport. Now that has 
given away to musical concerts, the opera and the like. 
There are those before me who remember the whip- 
ping-post in Boston and Worcester. Some of you 
have seen men branded with a red-hot iron, others 
whose ears were cropped by the order of the Boston 
court. Imprisonment for debt — how common it was 
but a very few years ago! There was more hanging 
in Massachusetts when she had only forty thousand 
children, than now, when she has a thousand thou- 
sand. 

Schools for girls are of recent birth. Hospitals, 
asylums for all denominations of the unfortunate, have 
come in my time, within the memory of what are called 
middle-aged men. Here too was a battle ; but victory 
has always perched on the banners of the faithful and 
true. Christian theology comes off beaten in every 
fight ; Christian religion triumphs out of every skir- 
mish. Once baptism was provided at the public cost 
of Boston, and it was requisite for entrance to the 
town meeting, as nobody could vote without his cer- 
tificate of baptism and church-membership. Now 
vaccination is provided by the town, and no one goes 
into the public school without being fortified against 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 389 

the smallpox ; and though Boston has all Cochituate 8 
at its disposal, it gives baptism to no child of man. 

All this demonstrates what human nature plainly 
foretells. The future will be like the past, — and that 
is a progress. Each new truth will produce new in- 
stitutions to bless mankind with more manly and 
womanly virtue. It is not at all difficult, therefore, to 
see what will follow ultimately. In New England we 
have not so good institutions for training scholars as 
in France, England, or Germany; we cannot educate 
artists and musicians so well as Europe. Accordingly, 
scholarly and artistic men must wander abroad for 
their highest culture. This is no reproach; we are 
too young as yet to provide the apparatus for making 
finished scholars, painters, sculptors and musicians. 
But we have the best institutions in the world for edu- 
cating the mass of mankind. Accordingly, while in- 
ferior to Europe in science and art, while we must im- 
port beauty and demonstration from abroad, — we 
have yet got the mass of the people better educated 
in their understanding than any other mass of men 
in the whole world. What makes this more important 
is that this is true not only of the men, but of the 
women also. In the old European countries the great 
body of the women pass most of their life toiling in 
the field, and they get very little culture of the higher 
faculties, even of the understanding. Here this is in- 
verted. But in order to do justice to this theme, I 
should need a whole sermon, and not merely a para- 
graph. Then too, while this fourfold demoralization 
of the pulpit, politics, business, and the political and 
commercial press of the country, has been going on, 
there has been a progressive moralization of the whole 



390 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



people. The legislation of New England shows it, 
and all those institutions which I have just spoken of 
have been achieved in spite of that four-fold evil in- 
fluence. At one end of society — I call it the extreme 
left — there is a body of men with very little property, 
education or morality, very far behind the rest. At 
the other end — which I will call the extreme right — 
is another body of men with a good deal of money, 
intellectual culture, conventional manners, good taste, 
but with very little of moral and religious develop- 
ment. One is the extreme left, the other the extreme 
right; one makes the fugitive slave bill, the other is 
the " marshal's guard " which enforces it. But the 
great body of the people, the centre of our American 
line, is composed mainly of men who love truth and 
justice, and who have a moral development a little in 
advance of their intellectual. 

Now the first result of the popular education of the 
people and this great expansion of the means of en- 
lightenment and power to use it with complete freedom, 
is the rapid increase of riches, the multiplication of 
the means of doing much work in little time, and the 
consequent increase and wide diffusion of wealth. 
That is a beautiful spectacle. The thinking head is 
the best machine in the world, the father of all other 
machines. The next result is this increase of intellect, 
which will help produce higher forms of character, 
and so higher forms of life. And here is a mighty 
future before us. The old theological institution must 
perish; I mean what is false in it, those five ideas, of 
God, of man, of the relation between them, of inspira- 
tion and salvation ; — they must go where pope and 
pagan have long since gone. There is a great battle 
now going on. There are two parties, — men of prog- 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 391 



ress, with new ideas, and the desire for more and bet- 
ter; reactionaries, who cling to the old and refuse to 
advance the way others go. Once the Unitarians and 
Universalists belonged to the movement party, and 
they have done great service. But they have now 
danced out their music; they occupy the floor, and 
are trying to dance the old figure backwards, but 
forbid all new music and new steps. But men have 
been born in the Unitarian and Universalist house who 
have left it and built another house of their own. 
Every denomination has new men, new ideas. Doubt 
peers into the most orthodox meeting-house. All the 
old pulpits trodden by theological feet are yet worm- 
eaten with new inquiries. Some only doubt the old, 
and get nothing new to take its place; but most men 
find some comfort in the new theology which comes 
from human nature, and in passing from the old house 
they do not step out of doors, but into the new house 
built on the imperishable rock of human nature. 

Between these two parties there is a strife. A crack 
runs through all the churches of New England, — - not 
broad yet, but very deep, and getting wide. The new 
party press on, often with many faults, lack of rever- 
ence, scorn of the past, neglect of excellent things in 
the old ; — it is so easy to renounce all when a part is 
bad, to push the Bible aside, to refuse to be instructed 
by the truth which it contains because there is error in 
it ! But the old theology seeks to go back further and 
further. In old England the most spiritual part of it 
went to Puseyism, thence to Romanism. In New 
England the Unitarians go back to Orthodoxy, but it 
only widens the breach. Each army rallies about its 
special banner. Not long since it was the Unitarians' 



392 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



boast that they had no denominational creed; now it 
is their boast that they have one — one of the weakest 
and poorest of all creeds which have been made, a 
qualified belief in next to nothing. 9 Once it was their 
boast, and the Universalists' also, that they took only 
piety and morality for the essentials of Christianity; 
now a belief in the miraculous authority of the Bible 
seems to be their sine qua non. This reactive tendency 
is most strong in the great centres of commerce, 
strongest of all in the churches of commerce, and with 
men who have done the very least for this world. 
They who do nothing for actual righteousness must 
have the word on their lips; they do well therefore to 
preach at least imputed righteousness. This belief in 
the old is the veil let down over the face of Mammon. 
While the worshipper sees writ thereon in golden let- 
ters, Savior, Redeemer, Christ, Miracle, Atonement, 
Bible, Salvation, — he does not see that it is Mammon 
behind it which he is worshipping. This new ortho- 
doxy is the incense which the Unitarian and Univer- 
salist high priest of commerce is offering to the golden 
calf set up in the church of commerce, in the great 
metropolis of commerce. When hypocrites do this let 
it be laughed at and pointed at; but when done by 
earnest, reverent and self-denying men, let us respect 
their motive while we practice not their measure. 

Just now the ministers of the north have lost favor 
in respect to the great sins of the age, and especially 
in respect to slavery. I suppose also that they feel a 
little remorse. What must be done? They must 
make some amend. So the Unitarian must have 
prayer meetings like the Orthodox. The prayer meet- 
ing corresponds with the Orthodox idea ; it is false and 
at variance with the Unitarian idea; but if the Uni- 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 393 



tarian will not practice morality, he must pray for 
spirituality. The Orthodox, who are in a similar con- 
dition, seek to recover their ground by the Bible. 
Twenty or twenty-five years ago a great storm of re- 
vival swept over all the North, with disastrous effects, 
as I think. I watched it carefully in Boston in 1831 
and '32, and since that I have seen the uprooted trees 
in many parts of New England. Now the experiment 
is repeated, and theological newspapers report great 
revivals in the churches — the Lord pouring out his 
holy spirit, accessions, baptisms, and the like. They 
do not report any increase of brotherly love, any 
growth of honesty, of intelligence, of charity, of per- 
sonal purity, — because it is not human righteousness 
which they aim to revive ; it is only to lay hold of the 
imputed righteousness ; not to make earth heaven, but 
to carry more persons the other side. But this revival 
will not succeed now as before, for the popular belief 
in this is weakened, by the general enlightenment of 
the people, through the study of literature, history, 
science, and still more by what is called the spiritual 
manifestations, — for if a man can make miracles in 
his own house he can scarcely be expected to place 
much reliance on those imported from the other side 
of the flood. This cholera of revivals will doubtless 
come again and again, but like the Asiatic will be 
weaker each time, will involve fewer people in its de- 
struction, as men learn how to escape it. This the- 
ology is doomed to perish; the next twenty-five years 
will make a mightier change in it than the last fifty 
have done. 

Now the question is not between the old theology 
and no faith, no belief in immortality or the providence 



394 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



of God; the question is between the old and new one, 
which gives you a loftier idea of God and man, of 
man's duty and destination, not only hereafter but 
here. When God is represented as lovely, immortality 
attractive, duty natural, and religion reasonable, you 
will not find that men will turn away from it at all. 
The Christian theology is sure to go to pieces ; the 
Christian religion will last forever and ever, — because 
it is human religion built on this imperishable founda- 
tion which God has laid in the nature of man himself. 
Then there will follow great changes in man's material 
and social condition. There will be a yet greater 
abundance of wealth, created by honest industry, more 
widely diffused abroad than ever before. A wider 
scheme of education will diffuse the ideas of the most 
enlightened men far more widely than now, and much 
better culture of the mass of the people will take place ; 
schools, libraries, lectures, reading-rooms, galleries of 
pictures and sculpture, and concerts, will be multiplied 
and produce their beautiful influence everywhere. 
These will help enlighten, refine and elevate the great 
mass of men, who are already so much enlightened in 
their understanding. Then the superior education of 
a select class of the people will be vastly different from 
what it is now, — not barely of the understanding, but 
of the affections, the conscience and the religious power 
also. The old sensational philosophy has made its 
mark on our culture: the higher spiritual philosophy 
is likewise to produce its sweet and blessed influence. 

This increase of wealth and of wisdom, the diffusion 
of science, directed by the greater morality and reli- 
gion of the people, will go to produce other institu- 
tions which will ensure to all men the conditions of 
wealth, long life, sobriety, manliness and womanliness. 



DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 395 



Drunkenness, it is plain, is doomed also to perish; it 
will be long doubtless before we furnish ourselves with 
the best possible means of annihilating it. Slavery 
must be abolished. The elevation of woman is sure to 
follow, and this is the greatest practical reformation 
before the people : and when she is recognized as the 
equivalent of man in her individual, social, political, 
domestic and ecclesiastical rights, most beautiful re- 
sults will follow: that dreadful vice of cities will end, — 
for like slavery it rests on the idea that its victim is an 
inferior being: and what a change in society, in the 
state and in the church, when the feminine element 
walks side by side with the masculine ! Then what 
new beauty, new force, will there be in the commu- 
nity, — for men and women will be not only better 
bred, but also better born. 

Then a reconstruction of society will follow. Co- 
operative industry must one day take the place of 
selfish antagonism. Such a society will follow as Jesus 
of Nazareth had a forefeeling of, one which shines 
through his Sermon on the Mount, yes, through the 
poetic hopes of mankind for many an age, prophesy- 
ing the good time coming. 

A great battle is to be fought. It is to be fought 
here at least in New England, for here the two ex- 
tremes meet in closest contact, in sternest strife. It 
is a noble opportunity offered to you and me. No 
doubt it is a period of great danger ; liberty may be- 
come license, neglect of the old form may lead to 
abandonment of the universal substance. The vice, 
that will be transient : the gain will be forever. The 
opportunity for noble life was never so attractive as 
now. What contributions to humanity you and I may 



396 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



make! Every truth that any man utters is eternal; 
nay, every excellence of character, of actions, of feel- 
ing, which we bring to light, — it will last forever ; it 
is not barely the private property of Hannah and 
William, but it spreads abroad from one man to an- 
other, until at last, like the grass on the ground, or 
the air above it, it will go round the whole world. You 
and I, when we die, carry to heaven in our spirits' 
breath the flavor of the fruit we have planted, reared 
and fed on ; but its seed remains here to be the parent 
of forests yet to be born. 

To-day is the seventeenth of June. Eighty years 
ago this hour our fathers crossed their swords with a 
great and mighty empire. They were defeated in that 
fight. Look now, and see the pillar of stone which 
points to heaven and chronicles our fathers' deeds on 
the spot once wet with their defeated blood. But see 
the triumph of the truth which brought our fathers 
there, and on this day can any man doubt of the tri- 
umph of our principles? There are millions behind 
us ; we can leave for them theological institutions full 
of great truths — the God of infinite perfection, man 
with a glorious nature and commensurate destination; 
we can leave a state based on justice; a society full of 
industry, temperance, purity, noble manhood; and a 
church of natural religion, worshipping the Infinite 
God by the normal use of every limb of the body, 
every faculty of the spirit, every portion of power we 
possess over matter, over mind. This is sure to come ! 
You and I are not called upon to be martyrs for this 
cause, only called upon to be evangelists and apostles, 
to receive our blessing as we go on, and leave it mani- 
fold to those who shall follow in our path. 



NOTES 



NOTES 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 

It is not known when this lecture was written, nor is 
it known where or how often it was delivered. It was 
published in pamphlet form (24mo, 39 pages) about 
February 1, 1876, by the Free Religious Association, 
Boston. It was No. 4 of the " Free Religious Tracts " 
issued at that time. The " preliminary note " was 
probably written by William Channing Gannett, editor 
of the series, and was as follows : — - 

" Who were the 6 New England Transcendentalists,' 
and what was the new wine that filled them full of its 
enthusiasm, a generation ago? Ralph Waldo Emer- 
son, George Ripley, Mr. Alcott, Margaret Fuller, Theo- 
dore Parker and the rest, — many of our fathers can 
name their names, but it might be harder to answer the 
other question and tell what they believed. No one can 
tell that better than Theodore Parker himself, who was 
the Paul of the movement, — its most doctrinal inter- 
preter, its systematic theologian, its most ardent mis- 
sionary. Much of him that would be welcomed by the 
world lies buried in the hieroglyphics of his manuscript, 
only readable by eyes that learned to love him in his 
life-time. This essay on transcendentalism in contrast 
with sensationalism, now for the first time printed, has 
been rescued from the burial, because it is so clear-cut 
an account of the two great rival philosophies as viewed 
by the band of which he was the champion ; a champion 
not blind to the dangers of his own nor to the good 
achieved by the opposite system, but so thorough-going 
in his loyalty that even Bishop Berkeley and Jonathan 
Edwards stand to him for arch-sensationalists. 

399 



400 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



" Save a few slight amendments or omissions where 
some sentence is imperfect in the manuscript or past 
finding out, the lecture is printed as written in 1850 
or thereabouts, with all the time-marks left in; the ref- 
erence, for instance, to the politics then reigning in 
the North and South. As plain a time-mark, too, is 
the necessary estimate of the sensational philosophy by 
its earlier and barer, not its more recent and deepening 
statement. Probably a tract presenting the beliefs of 
this new school of sensationalism will also be issued 
by the Free Religious Association." 

The reference here is to the philosophy growing out 
of Darwinism and the theory of evolution. Parker's 
relations to this later sensationalism will be mentioned 
in these notes in considering his sermons on the reve- 
lations of matter and mind. The promised tract on 
the newer sensationalism was not published by the Free 
Religious Association. 

Page 12, note 1. " Systeme de la natur " was writ- 
ten by Baron Paul H. T. Holbach, and published 
anonymously in 1770. It has been called the " Bible 
of Naturalism." 

Page 13, note 2. Calhoun rejected the theory of 
natural rights, also equality of all men, and the social 
contract. He said that liberty is a privilege, also that 
the negro is at the lowest point in the scale of human 
beings. Another of his assertions, in Congress, was 
that no Southern man will submit to perform menial 
duties. He likewise declared that " there has never yet 
existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one por- 
tion of the community did not, in point of fact, live 
on the labor of the other." Dr. Cooper of South Caro- 
lina, a disciple of Calhoun, in his " Political Econ- 
omy," said: " The universal law of nature is force. 
By this law the lower animals are subdued to man, and 
the same law governs the relations between men." 

Page 22, note 3. This statement is not wholly true 



NOTES 



401 



in regard to Rousseau, whose religion had many strik- 
ing resemblances to that of Parker. Rousseau claimed 
to know God and to be assured of immortality because 
these truths were indelibly stamped on his heart. He 
appealed to the sentiment of the divine as in itself a 
revelation. In the " Savoyard Vicar " he wrote, " Let 
us consult the inner light." He was in part, at least, 
a transcendentalist. He gave power to feeling rather 
than to intuition, in this differing from Parker. His 
teaching, as passed on to Kant, Schleiermacher, and 
others, reached Parker in a largely modified form ; and 
yet both men placed a great emphasis on sentiment as 
a basis for religious truth. 

ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS AND RELIGIOUS 
CONSCIOUSNESS 

This sermon was written in May, 1854, and was 
preached at that time. It was also preached May 19, 
1855, at the opening of the Progressive Friends' Meet- 
ing House at Longwood, Penn. It was printed in the 
" Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting of 
Progressive Friends held at Longwood, near Kennett 
Square, Chester County, fifth month, 1855." In that 
pamphlet it appeared with this title : " A Discourse 
on the Relation between Ecclesiastical Institutions and 
the Religious Consciousness of the American People. 
Delivered at the First Opening of the Progressive 
Friends' Meeting House, at Longwood." It has not 
appeared in any American edition of Parker's works, 
but was printed in the third volume of Miss Cobbe's 
edition, entitled " Discourses of Theology." 

At the opening of the Meeting-House at Longwood 
Joseph A. Dugdale participated, and Oliver Johnson 
made a brief statement of the causes which led to the 
erection of the house. After singing by the Hutchin- 
son family, Parker was introduced. " For more than 
1—26 



402 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



two hours," says the official report, " he held the close 
and unwearied attention of the assembly." It is also 
stated that his discourse was " replete with great truths 
eloquently expressed." 

The " Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting of Progressive 
Friends " was a result of the anti-slavery agitation, and 
especially of the organization of the American Anti- 
slavery Society in Philadelphia during the year 1833. 
The Kennett Monthly Meeting and the Western Quar- 
terly Meeting of the Hicksite or Unitarian division of 
the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting heard anti-slavery lec- 
turers, and a partial separation began in 1845. The 
other reforms agitating the liberal men and women of 
that day also obtained a large hearing. The result 
was that in 1853 a call was issued for " a general reli- 
gious conference with the view to the establishment of 
a Yearly Meeting in Pennsylvania " on a broader basis. 
The purpose of the conference was set forth in the 
call: — 

" The various religious denominations in the land are 
arrayed against the progressive spirit of the age, and 
by their very structure, assumptions and regulations, 
cannot occupy a co-operative position, because they 
impose fetters upon freedom of speech and of con- 
science, by requiring a slavish conformity in matters 
of abstract faith and sectarian discipline. This has 
led and is leading to extensive secessions from such or- 
ganizations in all parts of the country, leaving the se- 
ceders generally in a scattered and isolated condition, 
whose talents, influence and means might be profitably 
concentrated for the advancement of the world-embrac- 
ing cause of human brotherhood, and who are yearning 
for some form of association at once simple, free and 
attractive. 

" The Society of Friends has been a theatre of agita- 
tion for years, growing out of ecclesiastical domination 
on the one hand, and the demand for practical right- 



NOTES 



403 



eousness on the other; a domination entirely at vari- 
ance with the spirit of primitive Quakerism, seeking 
to suppress free thought and to exclude from member- 
ship those whose lives are without blemish, whose ex- 
ample in word and deed is as a burning and shining 
light, and who are seeking to know and do the will of 
God at whatever sacrifice ; a domination which has been 
deemed so intolerable that in the States of New York, 
Ohio and Michigan Yearly Meetings have been formed, 
two of which have taken the name of Congregational 
Friends, and two others that of Progressive Friends, 
and which invite to membership 4 all those who look to 
God as a Universal Father and who regard as one 
brotherhood the whole family of man ? " 

The call expressed the belief that " a society may 
be formed recognizing the progressive element which 
will divorce religion from technical theology." The 
first meeting was held at the Meeting-House in Old 
Kennett, May 22, 1853. It was successful, largely at- 
tended, and the necessary organization was effected. 
In 1854, after the meeting had been in session for two 
days, the house was closed against the Progressive 
Friends, and the gathering then assembled in a neigh- 
boring hall. The result was that in 1855 a new meet- 
ing-house was erected and dedicated. It took the name 
of Longwood from that of an adjacent farm, on a part 
of which the house was erected. The call for this year 
defined clearly the purposes and the spirit which actu- 
ated the builders in the opening of a new house of 
worship. 

" The chief characteristic of the Progressive Friends, 
by which they are distinguished from nearly every other 
religious society, is seen in the fact, that they prescribe 
no system of theological belief as a test of member- 
ship, but invite to equal co-operation all who regard 
mankind as one brotherhood, and who acknowledge the 
duty of showing their faith in God, not by assenting 



404 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



to the lifeless propositions of a man-made creed, but 
by lives of personal purity and a hearty devotion to 
the welfare of their fellow-men. Slavery, intemper- 
ance, war, capital punishment, the denial of the equal 
rights of woman, oppression in all its forms, ignorance, 
superstition, priestcraft and ecclesiastical domination 
— these, and such as these, are the evils and sins which 
they feel constrained to assail by every rightful and 
legitimate weapon; while they seek to promote every 
virtue that can adorn humanity, and to foster those im- 
mutable principles of justice, mercy and love, which 
alone can secure the peace, progress and happiness of 
all the children of God. To all those whose hearts in- 
cline them to engage in a work so transcendently im- 
portant and sublime, we say, Come and aid us by your 
sympathies, aspirations and counsels, and by the con- 
secration thereto of your noblest powers." 

At the Longwood Yearly Meeting addresses were 
given by prominent anti-slavery and reform speakers. 
Garrison attended several sessions and took an active 
part. Such reformers as Lucretia Mott were deeply 
interested. Most of the more radical Unitarians 
preached at one or more of the meetings. Correspond- 
ence with the Michigan, Ohio and Indiana Yearly Meet- 
ings continued until the opening of the Civil War ; and 
also with local meetings at Waterloo and North Col- 
lins, New York. The most prominent of the clerks in 
charge of the arrangement and management of the 
meetings were Oliver Johnson, Richard A. Dugdale, 
Charles D. B. Mills, Rev. Charles G. Ames, and Rev. 
Frederick A. Hinckley, at succeeding periods. 

At these meetings it was the custom for many years 
for the clerks to present a " declaration of sentiments," 
setting forth the general purposes of the meetings and 
the attitude of the Progressive Friends towards the 
religious and social life of the time. This was followed 
by " testimonials," prepared by a special committee, 



NOTES 



405 



which briefly discussed current questions in the light 
of the convictions of those present. These questions 
were usually of a practical nature, though such topics 
as Spiritualism and sectarianism, religion and spiritual 
culture were considered. Other topics were slavery, 
caste, marriage, education in its various phases, tem- 
perance, tobacco, treatment of criminals, capital punish- 
ment, amusements, kindness to animals, parentage, 
claims of children, peace, war, Indians, labor and capi- 
tal, Sunday observance, and many others. Both the 
declaration of sentiments and the testimonials were dis- 
cussed at length, and the meeting made such changes 
in them as brought them into conformity with the opin- 
ions of those present, as expressed by a general vote 
on their adoption as " the sense of the meeting." 

Parker attached himself warmly to the Progressive 
Friends at Longwood. He was invited to attend the 
meeting of 1853, as were Garrison, Samuel J. May, 
Gerrit Smith, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cassius 
M. Clay, and others. In reply to the invitation Parker 
sent the following letter: 

Boston, 2d May, 1853. 

" Dear Friends : I re j oice in your movement for real 
religion. It seems strange that men make such a mys- 
tery of religion, when itself is so simple. There is 
only one religion in the world; it consists of two ele- 
ments, namely: Piety, the love of God, the poetic 
element, purely internal ; and Morality, the keeping of 
the natural laws of God for body and soul, in all de- 
partments of human life. 

" There are various helps to the acquisition of this 
one religion, and various hindrances with the name of 
helps — bad machinery which men have set up to man- 
ufacture religion withal, and various theories about re- 
ligion — various theologies, still there is only one reli- 
gion. Of this the Jew has some, the Hindu, Moham- 



406 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



metan, Idolater, Christian, each has some. No sect 
has all; no race of men is wholly destitute of religion. 

" The great error of all the Christian sects at the 
present day, I take it, is this: 1st, they start with 
the idea of an imperfect God, a God who is jealous, 
selfish, revengeful and destructive, who is a tyrant, and 
made the world from a mean motive, and hence a mean 
purpose; 2d, they start with the notion that this im- 
perfect God has made a miraculous revelation of him- 
self in time (and that revelation is contained in the 
Church, as the Catholics say, or in the Bible, as the 
Protestants say), which is to bind all the human race 
forever, and is the ultimate standard of appeal in all 
matters of religion (and philosophy, some say). Then 
out of these two notions they construct a scheme of 
theology, which is at variance with the best principles 
of human nature, and teach it in the name of God and 
religion. 

" If I understand it, the Progressive Friends will 
start with the idea of the infinite perfection of God, 
that he is perfect in power, in wisdom, in justice, in 
love, and in holiness. Then they will take the Bible 
for what it is worth, and develop religion in a natural 
way out of their own souls. I rejoice in your move- 
ment, and I wish I could be present with you on the 
22d, but it is quite impossible, so you will please accept 
my best wishes, and believe me truly yours, 

" Theodore Parker." 

Joseph A. Dugdale, for the committee. 

At the Longwood meeting of 1859 it was reported 
that Parker was critically ill in Italy, and the follow- 
ing letter was thereupon addressed to him as an ex- 
pression of affection and appreciation: 



NOTES 



407 



" To our well-beloved Friend and Fellow-Laborer in the 
cause of Truth and Righteousness, Theodore Parker, 
the Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting of Progressive 
Friends sendeth greeting. 

" As we are about to close our Seventh Annual Con- 
vocation, our hearts turn with loving tenderness to thee. 
We remember with gratitude how thy presence cheered 
us in former years, and how the words of truth that fell 
from thy lips were as sunlight and dew upon our hearts, 
enlightening our minds and quickening us to more 
earnest labor in the cause of humanity. We cannot 
deny ourselves the pleasure of sending to thee across 
the ocean a message of sympathy and affection; of 
heartfelt regret for the illness which has compelled thee 
to suspend thy public labors, and of hope for thy. 
speedy and complete recovery. The earnest prayer of 
our hearts is, that the voice which has so often blessed 
us may not be long silent, but be again lifted up with 
new power in behalf of truth and righteousness. 

" Signed by direction and on behalf of the Meeting, 
1st of sixth month, 1859. 

" Joseph A. Dugdale, 

" Elizabeth Jackson, 

" Oliver Johnson, 

Clerks." 

This kindly and sympathetic greeting elicited a re- 
sponsive reply: 

Montreux, Switzerland, 25th of ninth month, 1859. 

" To the Progressive Friends in Pennsylvania — 
Dear Friends, — Your kindly letter of the first of sixth 
month, signed by your clerks, Joseph A. Dugdale, 
Elizabeth Jackson, and Oliver Johnson — persons well 
known and highly esteemed — reached me but yester- 
day, for it was long delayed in Paris. Let me now, 
from a full heart, thank you for yowc generous expres- 



408 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



sion of such sympathy and regard. In these times, 
when a difference of theological opinions so often hin- 
ders all feeling of human brotherhood, your words 
come to me full of sweetness and encouragement. How 
pleasant it is to find religion without bigotry ; devotion 
to God with no hatred of his children! 

" Once I intended and promised to speak also to each 
of the other congregations of Progressive Friends ; but 
now I think you will never again hear my voice in your 
yearly meetings; for even if I somewhat recover my 
health, it seems I must hereafter address men only with 
the pen, and no longer also with the living word. Yet 
I trust I shall never fail, with what powers I have, to 
help forward the cause of truth and righteousness, so 
dear to you all. 

" I kept sacred the anniversary of your last meeting 
with devout gratitude for the opportunity I twice had 
of preaching before you what to me is far more dear 
than this earthly, mortal life, for the friendly recep- 
tion my words found amongst you, and the cheering 
talk I had with many of you in private. The faces 
of the men and women I value so much came up before 
me and peopled the solitude of the ocean. I was, when 
sailing through, comparing their human loveliness with 
the else mere material beauty of the sea. This year 
I could not gather with you at the yearly meeting ; yet 
was I present in spirit, and joined in your spoken or 
silent prayer for the truth which shall make all men 
free, and for the love that shall add its most precious 
blessings to all human kind. 

" Long may the spirit of truth and love, the spirit 
of religion, live in your hearts, shedding its gladness 
and its beauty on your daily lives, while it keeps your 
feet in the paths of righteousness, and strengthens your 
hands for every duty which God demands of you. Be- 
lieve me faithfully, 

" Your friend, 

" Theodore Parker." 



NOTES 



409 



Page, 71, note 1. This saying about search for 
truth is wrongly attributed to Luther. It is in Les- 
sing's Wolfenbuttel Fragments, the essay entitled 
" Eine Duplix." It will be found in his Sammtliche 
Schriften, Berlin, 1784-1824, vol. 6, p. 147. See also 
Sime's " Lessing," vol. 2, p. 206, and Helen Zim- 
mern's " Life and Works of Lessing," p. 361. 

Page, 79, note 2. Narcisco Lopez, a South Ameri- 
can by birth, arranged three invasions of Cuba, in 
August, 1849, May, 1850, and August, 1851. He 
landed in May with 300 men from the slave-holding 
states, and was driven out by government troops. The 
third expedition was the boldest and the most disas- 
trous. Crittenden's band was captured and shot. 
That led by Lopez was surprised, and he was executed 
by garrote. Cuban buccaneering was popular in New 
Orleans and throughout the Gulf region so long as 
there remained a shadow of a hope that the game which 
brought in Texas would be played over. Cuba was 
not the only neighboring soil where suspicious watch 
was kept upon the aggrandizing spirit of the United 
States. In Mexico and in Central America there was 
good reason to fear aggression from this lawless and 
half rebellious Southern element. Of filibustering ex- 
peditions and lone star associations we heard enough 
in the next decade, and the gift of a grave was the 
usual end of them. — James Schouler, History of the 
United States, vol. 5, pp. 215-219. 

Page 79, note 3. Bill Poole kept an eating-house at 
the corner of Broadway and Howard street, New York. 
On the evening of February 24, 1855, he was assaulted 
at Stanwix Hall, a Broadway saloon, and murdered. 
He had a great public funeral attended by thousands, 
and much excitement followed. He seems to have been 
" a ward heeler," and it was asserted that he was killed 
by an organized conspiracy for political reasons, in 
order that the control of the police might be secured 



410 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



for party purposes. The agitation found its way to 
Albany, and the police force was reorganized. 

Page 79, note 4. Revolutions took place in Ger- 
many, France and other European countries in the year 
1848. 

Page 81, note 5. The Crimean war was being 
largely reported in the newspapers during the early 
months of 1855. 

Page 90, note 6, The reference here is to Dr. Or- 
ville Dewey, a prominent Unitarian minister settled 
in New York. Parker frequently, condemned Dewey 
for his words, which were probably wrongly reported; 
but Parker would accept no qualifications. In his bi- 
ography of Parker John W. Chadwick says on page 
256, " Dr. Dewey's remark was one of those which 
Parker never tired of worrying. He insisted on its 
grossest form, and wrote in his journal that Dewey 
would have done what he said. This showed his ig- 
norance of the man, whose unfortunate expression was 
simply an hyperbole caught up to express Dr. Dewey's 
sense of the evils that would attend a disruption of the 
Union." In the Autobiography and Letters of Dewey, 
page 129, Chadwick also says: " I doubt if Garrison 
or Parker had a keener sense than his of the enormity 
of human slavery." 

Much testimony can be presented to show that the 
American churches were largely friendly to slavery or 
not opposed to it. This can be found in S. J. May's 
Reminiscences and in Parker Pillsbury's The Church as 
it is. In his Anti-Slavery Days James Ereeman Clarke 
says on pages 107 and 111: "The great political 
parties were both opposed to the anti-slavery movement ; 
a large part of the church and the leading theologians 
were also opposed to it." 

Page 98, note 7. Such a letter was published in one 
of the Boston papers, and was put into his scrap-book 
by Parker. It was an expression of the real religious 



NOTES 



411 



attitude of the time on the part of many excellent per- 
sons. 

THE NOTION OF GOD 

In May, 1858, Parker preached four sermons at 
Longwood, Pa. They were preached at Music Hall 
during the preceding months of that year, and were 
printed in the " Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Yearly 
Meeting of Progressive Friends, including Four Ser- 
mons by Theodore Parker. New York, Oliver John- 
son, 1858." They were published separately in 
pamphlet form with this title-page : " The Biblical, 
the Ecclesiastical, and the Philosophical Notion of 
God, and the Soul's Normal Delight in Him. Four 
Sermons, preached in the Yearly Meeting of Progres- 
sive Friends, at Longwood, Pa., May 30th and 31st, 
1858. By Theodore Parker, Minister of the 
XXVIIIth Congregational Society in Boston. New 
York, John F. Trow, Printer, 1858." 

These sermons were received with much favor at 
Longwood. The clerks for that year were Joseph A. 
Dugdale and Oliver Johnson. They say of the first 
sermon, in the " Proceedings," that it " commanded the 
fixed and earnest attention of the whole assembly." 
" He was listened to with heartfelt pleasure by a 
crowded audience," they report of the last sermon. 

He prefaced the first sermon with a brief statement 
of his purpose in the whole course. " Some years ago 
I spoke to you 6 Of the Relation between Ecclesiastical 
Institutions and the Religious Consciousness of the 
American People.' I am now here again to speak on 
great and kindred themes. You have no authoritative 
Scriptures ; your Bible is the universe, the world of 
matter your Old Testament, the world of man the New. 
In both there are revelations every day, for that canon 
is not closed, nor ever will be. With the catholic spirit 
of universal religion one of your clerks has just read 



412 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



from the Scriptures of the Chinese, the Hindus, the 
Persians, the Mohametans, the Hebrews, and the 
Christians. There is one material nature about us all, 
one human nature in us all, one Divine nature, one In- 
finite God above us all, immanent in each, near to the 
Buddhist and the Christian, equally loving to all. He 
is no respecter of sects more than of persons. I wish 
to speak of the notions men have of God, and of the 
effect thereof. So, if your business allow and your 
patience will endure so much, I will preach four ser- 
mons : 

I. Of the Progressive Development of the Concep- 
tion of God in the books of the Bible. 

II. Of the Ecclesiastical Conception of God, and its 
Relation to the Scientific and Religious Wants of the 
Age. 

III. Of the Natural or Philosophical Idea of God, 
and its Relation to the Scientific and Religious Wants 
of the Age. 

IV. Of the Soul's Normal Delight in the Infinite 
God. 

These are all great themes, of interest to mankind — 
not least, I think, to Progressive Friends." 

Frothingham speaks of these as " remarkable dis- 
courses." Of the first one Chadwick says it " suggests 
that his mind was already suffering from the depletion 
of his physical strength. It is below the level of his 
knowledge of Old Testament studies, while at the same 
time it indicates what a transposition of values there 
has been since Parker's time." Chadwick says of the 
third sermon : " This is one of the loftiest expres- 
sions of the faith that was in him. By 4 philosophical ' 
in his title he means 4 rational ' ; so generally." 

Page 103, note 1. Parker was the first minister in 
the United States to have flowers placed on the pulpit. 
In his Life of Parker O. B. Frothingham says, page 
242 : "A vase of flowers stood on his pulpit. — the 



NOTES 



413 



wild flowers in their season, cultivated flowers always — 
placed there by friends in the parish. Their beauty 
and fragrance crept into sermon and prayer. Having 
thus served in the worship of the morning, they went 
in the afternoon to the chambers of the sorrowing and 
the sick to fulfill the other divine duty of love. His 
love for wild flowers was almost a passion; he watched 
for their annual return and knew where, for miles 
around, he should find their first blooming." 

Page 1H, note %. Black Republican (or Black 
Abolition) was the name given to the Republican party 
by its pro-slavery opponents from its organization in 
1856 to the close of the Civil War, owing to its refusal 
to sanction the admission of slavery into any state 
where it did not previously exist. In the South in 
1858 and immediately following a Black Republican 
was 44 regarded as identical with a rabid and malignant 
abolitionist." See Macy, Political Parties in the 
United States. 

Page H7, note 3. Dr. Lyman Beecher was pastor 
of the Hanover street church in Boston from 1826 to 
1832, and was very active in reviving the Calvinistic 
teachings of an earlier period. He was zealous in the 
revival agitations of the time, with which the name of 
Nettleton is prominently associated. 

THE DELIGHTS OF PIETY 

This sermon was preached at Music Hall in Novem- 
ber, 1853, and was repeated at Longwood in 1855 at 
the meeting of Progressive Friends, one week later than 
the preceding one on " Ecclesiastical Institutions and 
Religious Consciousness." It was printed in the 44 Pro- 
ceedings " of that year, with the title : 44 A Sermon 
of the Delights of Piety, delivered at the opening ses- 
sion of the Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends, 
held at Longwood (near Kennett Square), Chester 



414 



MATTER AND SPIRIT 



County, Pa., on First Day morning, 20th of Fifth 
month, 1855." At this meeting Parker was made 
chairman of the committee on correspondence, and he 
took part in discussing an essay on amusements read 
by Oliver Johnson, and also one on the evils arising 
from the use of tobacco. 

This sermon has not before appeared in any Ameri- 
can volume, but it was included by Miss Cobbe in the 
third volume of her edition, entitled " Discourses of 
Theology." 

BEAUTY IN THE WORLD OF MATTER 

This sermon was printed as a 16mo pamphlet, 24 
pages, with the following title-page : " A Sermon for 
Midsummer Day. Beauty in the world of Matter, con- 
sidered as a Revelation of God, by Rev. Theodore 
Parker, Minister of the Twenty-eighth Congregational 
Society. Preached at the Music Hall, on Sunday, 
July 15, 1855. With Prefatory Letter from Mr. 
Parker at Santa Cruz. Boston, Published by the 
Fraternity, 1859." It appeared in the third volume, 
" Discourses of Theology," of Frances Power Cobbe's 
" Collected Works of Theodore Parker," 1863. The 
"prefatory letter" is given here in full: 

In the summer of 1855 I preached a series of dis- 
courses treating in an abstract and metaphysical way 
certain great matters, which required some severity of 
attention to master, or even comprehend. When it was 
nearly finished the weather became exceedingly warm, 
and it seemed to me not quite fit to lay heavy burthens 
on the minds of men to be borne in the heat of such 
days. Surely the wise minister will not change the 
blessed day of rest into a day of torment for the body 
as well as the soul. So, taking the hint alike from the 
season and the handsome things it brought forth so 
abundantly, I paused a little in my course of abstrac- 



NOTES 



415 



tions, and, taking a theme which was sure to require 
none but spontaneous attention from any audience, I 
preached " Of the Lesson of Beauty, — a Sermon for 
Midsummer Day." The unusual form of the discourse 
may easily be objected to, and declared unfit to be 
preached from the pulpit ; but I think the listeners then 
found it fit to be heard in the pews: and now, when 
thousands of miles from home, and compelled to be si- 
lent, I hope the readers will equally accept the lesson 
which the Infinite Teacher offers us all in the facts 
of nature, whence I have tried to translate it into plain 
human speech. 

Had I written the sermon in this fair-skied island 
of the Holy Cross, the lesson would have been the same, 
but the illustrations had been quite different. The 
same truth had ridden forth in like queenly sort, but 
in another chariot. Here it seems to me to be always 
midsummer, the weather is so genial by day and night. 
How clear the skies are ! how brilliant the sun ! It does 
not seem to go down and set, but rather to fall down 
and disappear, so suddenly, in this low latitude, does 
darkness take the place of day. But what a night 
it is, how quick the nobler stars come out, how large 
they look! The sun is scarcely out of sight, and not 
only the planets — Jupiter and Mars — appear, but 
the larger fixed stars, as Sirius and Arcturus, with 
handsome attendance, have kindled a new day ; then all 
the lesser sons of heaven, the " common people of the 
skies," rush into the field with democratic swiftness, and 
yet without indecorous haste. The Great Bear seems 
like a constellation of twinkling moons. Here, too, are 
stars I never saw before ; on the Southern Cross beauty 
is for ever " lifted up " for the benediction of the 
world, and thereby the Father draws the eyes of even 
savage men and foplings of the street. When the new 
moon is only a day old, it is plain she carries the old 
one in her arms. Now she has not been gibbous quite 



416 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



two days, but yet the printer could read this letter by 
her light, walking in brightness such as northern eyes 
behold not. Even now the clouds are colored as by 
day, only with less brilliant hues, yet quite equal to the 
day-clouds of a New England winter. 

The vegetation astonishes a northern lover of na- 
ture, all is so strange. Save the rose, here is not a 
tree, not a shrub, an herb, nor a weed which I have ever 
seen growing naturally before. The flora is a conser- 
vatory turned out of doors. Our oaks and elms are 
replaced by tamarinds, cocoa-nuts, mahoganies, and 
mountain-palms; our apple and pear trees by the sap- 
podilla, the banana, the orange, and the breadfruit ; our 
sweet-scented locust has many a thorny cousin here, but 
all strangers to me. While the minister, in his surplice, 
is reading the Episcopal litany, the oleanders, tall as 
the eaves of his meeting-house, not admitted to the 
church, solicited by the wind, bend down and reach in 
through the window — which needs no glass to hedge 
the flock from cold — and interrupt the artificial service 
with their natural lesson of beauty, not only for that 
day, but for all days of the human year. Huge " silk- 
cotton trees," and " Guinea tamarinds," mainly leafless 
now, diversify the landscape with their queer and fan- 
tastic look. The hills are mantled with sugar-cane, 
whose joints contain a sovereign juice, the island's 
wealth, — where power and sweetness float together for 
human good or ill; all the estates run with vegetable 
honey now, as the windmills crush the wealthy crop. 
The " pride of Barbadoes " opens its gorgeous bloom 
at the top of all the hedges; the false ipecacuanha — 
a ghastly beauty not less than a ghastly cure — grows 
by the road-side, with a certain lurid, poisonous look, 
as have many of her asclepian kindred. There is 
beauty all around, at least gorgeousness. Even the 
fish are many-coloured, and look like flowers of the sea, 
so brilliant and so various are their hues. 



NOTES 



417 



You are amazed at the wealth of life in these tropic 
lands. The ground, the air, the water, are all ani- 
mated; a dead fruit is quickly transfigured to new life, 
so soon do insects translate the decaying elements to a 
higher form of existence. 

But after all it seems to me that nature here is not 
so nearly related to man as at home ; vegetation has an 
unkindly look; you suspect these meretricious flowers, 
and keep aloof from the acacias and cactuses, and would 
have an honest homely apple-tree rather than all the 
prickly pears in all these islands which Columbus named 
after the eleven thousand virgins of Cologne. Perhaps 
this may be prejudice and narrow-mindedness on my 
part, I only tell what appears. 

In our cold northern lands we get tired of the win- 
ter; a longing for spring affects our literature, and 
has its influence on the character of all northern civili- 
zation. Here it is perpetual summer, and nobody 
longs for what all enjoy. The absence of grass is not 
pleasing to one who lives where it comes " creeping, 
creeping, creeping everywhere." Who would like to 
be buried under ugly sedges, their solid stems growing 
a foot apart and six feet high, and never wet with 
dew? Grass-clad earth " unto our flesh is kind," and 
the sods of a New England valley will one day be 
sweet to us all. 

But here as elsewhere the lesson of beauty is con- 
tinual, and the same which is offered in New England. 
Large-hearted Mr. Welltodo might spend his Sunday 
as profitably in Friedriksstad as in his native town, 
for the divine in nature looks out everywhere, and 
means Love in torrid zones or frigid. 

" Then looke, who list thy gazefull eyes to feed 
With sight of that is faire, looke on the frame 
Of this wyde universe, and therein reed 
The endlesse kinds of creatures which by name 
1—27 



418 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



Thou canst not count, much less their nature's aime ; 
All which are made with wondrous wise respect, 
And all with admirable beautie deckt." 

6i T P " 

" Friedriksstad, Santa Cruz, March 15, 1859.'* 

GOD'S REVELATION IN MATTER AND MIND 

In the spring of 1854 Parker preached a series of 
sermons on the revelation of God in nature and man. 
He returned to the subject in various forms, and in 
November and December, 1857, he preached a series 
of six sermons dealing especially with this favorite topic 
of his later years. It is evident he had gradually for- 
mulated his conclusions until he hoped to produce a 
popular and yet a systematic interpretation of the 
problems involved. In his " Life and Correspondence 
of Theodore Parker," vol. 2, p. 424, John Weiss gives 
the list of sermons as at first preached, as follows: 

No. 880. The Progress of True Theological Ideas. 
Part i. Historical. 

No. 881. The same. Part ii. Conjectural. 

No. 885. The Progress of God in the World of 
Matter. 

No. 889. The Evidence of God in the Relations be- 
tween the World of Matter and of Mind. Part i. 
No. 890. The same. Part ii. 

The impression made by these sermons was such that 
he was requested to repeat them, which he did in Janu- 
ary and February, 1858. It would appear that they 
were then largely rewritten and given in the more sys- 
tematic form in which they appear in this volume. It 
is in part doubtful whether Parker intended to include 
in this series the sermon on the innermost facts of reli- 
gious consciousness, and yet in his own note-book re- 
cording his sermons preached it is listed as No. i. of 
this series. It has been thought best, therefore, to give 



NOTES 



419 



it the place assigned it, as introductory to the five 
succeeding sermons, which form a systematic course. 

In writing to George Ripley from St. Thomas, May 
13, 1859, concerning his 4 Experience as a Minister,' 
Parker added : " I don't know that I have published 
anything more important this long time, though I 
preached a series of sermons on the 6 Testimony of the 
World of Matter to the Existence and Character of 
God ' in 1857-8, which I think the ablest I ever wrote. 
I wish I could live long enough to print them ; each was 
an hour and a quarter long (hard, abstruse matter) 
and I did not preach more than two-thirds of the MS. 
I have not much instinctive love of life, but just now 
I should like a year or two more to finish up some things 
not half done. Still I am ready anytime, and have 
never had a minute of sadness at the thought of pass- 
ing to the immortals." 

On June 2, writing from Radley's Hotel, London, 
to Frances Power Cobbe, he returns to the subject, after 
mentioning his hope of recovery : " I have many 
things half ready for the press which none beside me 
could print. In special, I have a short volume of ser- 
mons on the 4 Evidence of God found in the World of 
Matter and of Mind'; they were preached in 1858. 
I like them better than anything I have done before. 
Each was about an hour and a quarter in the delivery, 
and what was spoken could be recalled from the notes 
of the phonographer who daguerreotyped all my words. 
But I did not preach more than half of what my brief 
contained. The unpreached matter will be lost without 
me ; hard to write it out. Besides, I have volumes more 
in that state." 

Once again he wrote of these sermons to an intimate 
friend, this time addressing Professor Edward Desor 
from Rome, February 24, 1860. " Here in Rome I 
am out of the way of all books, except the Lives of 
the Saints, etc. But yet I learn of Mr. Darwin's work 



420 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



on ' Principles of Selection in Natural History.' It is 
one of the most important works the British have lately 
contributed to science. He does not believe in Agas- 
siz's foolish notion of an interposition of God when a 
new form of lizard makes its appearance on the earth. 
Indeed, a God who only works by fits and starts is no 
God at all. Science wants a God that is a constant 
force and a constant intelligence, immanent in every 
particle of matter. The old theological idea of God 
is as worthless for science as it is for religion. I 
should like to live long enough to finish and print a 
course of sermons I preached in 1858, on ' The Testi- 
mony of Matter and Mind to the Existence and Char- 
acter of God.' It certainly is the most important thing 
I have done in my life; but is left not fit for publica- 
tion. If I don't do the work some one else will; a 
little later, but perhaps better." 

In 1862 Mrs. Parker proposed to publish this series 
of sermons, and they were copied by Mr. Rufus Leigh- 
ton, who reported many of Parker's sermons and 
published several of them. In a letter to her, dated 
Washington, November, 1862, he wrote: "The five 
sermons which I send were put into this present shape 
some time since. You will recollect that at the time 
of their delivery abstracts of four of them appeared in 
the ' Atlas and Bee.' Mr. Yerrington and I volun- 
tarily prepared them and procured their publication at 
the time. I knew how much Mr. Parker thought of 
these sermons, as he had spoken to me of them, and in 
a note which he wrote me on the 21st January, 1859, 
he mentioned two or three books which he meant to pub- 
lish at some time if he should get well, and among them 
the one you propose to bring out. His other works 
had just then come into my hands from Little, Brown 
& Co. Thinking that at some future time I might have 
the satisfaction of publishing this book for him during 
the winter I took the abstracts as printed, and from 



NOTES 



421 



my notes filled them out, and also copied the last ser- 
mon of the six ; and as they now stand they are almost 
or quite word for word as delivered from the pulpit. 
Since you wrote to me I have looked them over care- 
fully again. Some of the pages look a little confused, 
but I think they are all so plain that a printer would 
not have the least difficulty in making them out. I 
am exceedingly glad that these sermons are to be pub- 
lished, as they certainly will be a valuable addition to 
what has been said on the subject by others, and I 
think they will meet with a good reception, especially 
in England, and on the Continent." 

This plan for publication was not carried out, and 
the copies made by Mr. Leighton passed to Parker's 
literary executor. They have now been revised by Mr. 
Leighton for the present volume, Parker's MSS. being 
used for this purpose. As far as possible, therefore, 
they present not only what Parker wrote, but what he 
said in addition on the delivery of the sermons. 

This series has often been mentioned by Parker's 
friends and hearers as " the Darwin sermons." It is 
evident from his letter to Professor Desor that Parker 
had not read Darwin's book on " The Origin of Spe- 
cies," the first edition of which was published on No- 
vember 24, 1859. It is possible, however, that he did 
read Darwin's summary of his views, which, together 
with Wallace's paper on variation, was read before the 
Linnasan Society, July 1, 1858, and printed in the 
Journal of that society about the first of October, the 
same year. He is more likely to have read the articles 
in the English reviews, where the " Origin " received 
large attention. Especially noteworthy was an ex- 
tended outline of Darwin's argument published in the 
" Times " for December 26, 1859, written by Huxley, 
who also had an article on the book in " Macmillan's 
Magazine " for December, 1859. Another friendly 
summary and review was that by W. B. Carpenter in 



422 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



the " National Review 99 for January, 1860. It is evi- 
dent Parker appreciated such conception of the book 
as could be obtained in that manner. 

These dates indicate that the Linnaean Societjr pub- 
lication is the only one that could have influenced 
Parker in the preparation of this series of sermons. 
The sermons themselves indicate that he did not grasp 
the idea of natural selection, and that he must have 
been influenced by older forms of the theory of evo- 
lution. That he was a strong believer in evolution these 
sermons prove, but he was indebted probably to Goethe, 
Robert Chambers in the " Vestiges of Creation," and 
other writers who were feeling their way to the trans- 
mutation conception of origins. It should not be for- 
gotten, however, that the idea of progress, of a funda- 
mental law of evolution in the physical, organic and 
human world, was very generally accepted by such 
men as Emerson, Parker, Thoreau, and many others. 
It was intimately associated with the reform tendencies 
of that period, and was regarded as the justification 
for the reforms then proposed. 

The titles of these sermons are here given in full as 
they appear in Parker's manuscripts, together with the 
dates of their final delivery : — 

1. The Innermost Facts of Religious Conscious- 
ness. December 6, 1857. 

2. Evidences of God in the World of Matter. 
January 10, 1858. 

3. Evidences of God in the World of Man. Jan- 
uary 17, 1858. 

4. Evidences of God in the Relation Between the 
World of Matter and the World of Man. January 
24, 1858. 

5. Evidences of God in the Relation Between the 
World of Matter and the Spirit of Man. January 
31, 1858. 



NOTES 



423 



6. The Relation between God and Man. February 
7, 1858. 

Page 24,1, note 1. The Crystal Palace, so-called be- 
cause it was largely built of glass, was erected at 
Hyde Park, London, in 1851, for the World's Fair 
opened that year. 

Page 21^4, note 2. The reference is to Juggernaut 
or Jagannath, whose temple is at Puri, a town of 
Orissa. This temple is devoted to Vishnu in the form 
of Jagannath, who is a people's god, and has the char- 
arteristics of Krishna. One of the festivals of the 
god is called Rath jattra or car festival, and in the 
rush of devotees by accident persons are sometimes 
crushed. No one is thrown under the car as a part 
of the ceremonies. The god is not Buddhist, but Vish- 
nuistic. 

Page 251, note 3. The laws of energy were new 
in 1858 and Parker gave the latest information of that 
time. The list of forces manifested in the conservation 
of energy has now been extended to include kinetic and 
gravitation energies, heat, energy of elasticity, and co- 
hesian, chemical, electrical, magnetic, and radiant ener- 
gies. 

Page 252, note J±. The baobab tree, usually known 
as Adansonia, grows in tropical Africa, is often re- 
garded as the largest tree in the world, reaching a 
diameter of 20 feet. 

Page 259, note 5. Here Parker must refer to the 
day of each planet or its time of revolution on its 
axis ; not to the earth's day, as his expression seems to 
indicate. 

Page 260, note 6. Miles Greenwood was the name 
of a fire-engine in Boston. 

Page 260, note 7. The Journal and Transcript 
were leading morning and evening newspapers in Bos- 
ton in 1858, as they now are. 

Page 271, note 8. The Congregational church of 



424 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



North Woburn was formed in 1846. In 1857 Alpheus 
S. Nickerson, a student at Andover, was called, but the 
council was not able to advise his settlement on the 
grounds mentioned. In 1858 another council or- 
dained him, but did not secure him a legal settlement, 
and he soon withdrew. 

Page £93, note 9. Caloric and actinic are old chem- 
ical terms now little used. Caloric is heat-force, not 
used in old sense of a subtle imponderable fluid. Ac- 
tinic rays are vibrations too rapid to affect the eye, 
mostly used of photographic processes. 

Page £93, note 10. The number of definitely de- 
termined elements is now 78. 

Page 300, note 11. The Great Eastern was built 
1853-58, and was the largest that had then been 
launched. It is mentioned on page 301 as the great 
Leviathan, from the fabulous creature described in the 
Jewish scriptures. 

Page 301, note 1%. The Atlantic cable was first 
opened August 17, 1858, from Ireland to Newfound- 
land; and the reference to New Orleans only indicated 
the wide reach of its communications. 

Page 30Jf,, note 13. The present estimate of man's 
age varies from 250,000 to 300,000 years. 

Page 336, note 1£. Dr. Horace Wells, a dentist of 
Hartford, extracted teeth with the use of nitrous oxide. 
He communicated his discovery to Dr. William T. G. 
Morton, a dentist of Boston, who made use of sulphuric 
ether. He made known the results of his experiments 
to Dr. J. C. Warren, a leading surgeon of Boston. 
On October 16, 1846, ether was used by Dr. Warren 
at the Massachusetts General Hospital in a surgical 
case with complete success. The discovery was soon 
made known throughout the world. 

Page 31$, note 15. Russia attempted to make Mol- 
davia and Wallachia its mere dependencies as result 
of a treaty of 1829 with Turkey. This was one of 



NOTES 



425 



the causes of the Crimean war, but the treaty of Paris 
in 1856 changed their relations; and in 1859-61 these 
two countries were joined to make the principality of 
Roumania, which, with the addition of Dobrudja, was 
made a kingdom in 1878. 

THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL DEVELOP- 
MENT OF NEW ENGLAND 

These two sermons are placed here because in con- 
siderable degree they supplement the historical facts 
presented in the lecture on " Transcendentalism.'' 
In Parker's manuscript, as prepared for the press, evi- 
dently under his direction, they bear this title in full : — 
" The Moral Condition of Boston and New England ; 
the Causes of that Condition, and its Present and Ulti- 
mate Consequences, considered in two sermons, preached 
at the Music Hall on the 10th and 17th of June, 1855." 
These sermons are almost wholly unlike that on " The 
Moral Condition of Boston," preached at the Melodeon, 
February 11, 1849, and published in " Speeches, Ad- 
dresses, and Occasional Sermons," 1851. The title has 
been changed for this volume to make it more exactly 
descriptive of the contents. 

Page 353, note 1, The " rights of men " were de- 
fined by John Locke in his second treatise on Govern- 
ment. This Parker seems to have known, but it evi- 
dently did not come within the scope of his definition. 
Probably he did not know " A Vindication of the Gov- 
ernment of New England Churches," by John Wise, 
minister in Ipswich, now the town of Essex. Wise's 
book was published in 1717, and contained as definite 
a statement of natural rights as that given by Otis or 
any revolutionary leader. " Man's external personal, 
natural liberty," Wise wrote, " antecedent to all human 
parts or alliances, must also be considered ; and so every 
mm must be conceived to be perfectly in his own 



426 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



power and disposal, and not to be controlled by the 
authority of any other." 

Page 370, note 2. Francis Tukey was U. S. mar- 
shal at the time of the Antony Burns rendition. Col. 
T. W. Higginson, in his " Cheerful Yesterdays " calls 
him " a dark, handsome, picturesque man, said to pride 
himself on a certain Napoleon look." 

Page 370, note 3. Nehemiah Adams, 1806-1878, 
was a Congregational minister in Cambridge and Bos- 
ton. He spent a winter in Georgia, and published " A 
South Side View of Slavery," 1854, in which he praised 
the effect of slavery on religious character. He was 
often spoken of as " Southside Adams." 

Page 372, note 4- The attitude of ministers in re- 
gard to the anti-slavery and other reforms is fully de- 
scribed in Samuel J. May's " Recollections of Our Anti- 
Slavery Conflict." In that work it is shown that many 
clergymen of all denominations were opposed to every 
reform movement of the day. Details and names are 
given. 

Page 372, note 5. Josiah Quincy was the second 
mayor of Boston, 1823-1828. " The only innovation 
which was attempted in his time upon the old customs 
of the town was an experimental High School for girls, 
which had a brief trial of a year or two, and was then 
abandoned. The suggestion of the establishment of a 
school for the education of girls to as advanced a point 
as that of boys in the Latin and High Schools was 
one that naturally commended itself to the general pub- 
lic, and the experiment was fairly tried under the mas- 
tership of Mr. Ebenezer Bailey, a teacher of great ex- 
perience and skill. In one sense it only succeeded too 
well. The number of candidates fit for admission was 
entirely beyond the capacity of the school-house at the 
start, with the prospect of growing still larger every 
year. And in one important respect the plan was 
found not to work as its projectors had expected it 



NOTES 



would. The majority of the girls who could pass the 
preliminary examination were found to come from the 
wealthier classes, who could purchase for them instruction 
or were competent to afford it themselves. More than 
half the candidates came from private schools. With- 
out going into the details of the question, the practical 
objections to the scheme seemed insuperable, and it was 
abandoned. This conclusion of the whole matter gave 
rise to great discontent, and brought much obloquy 
upon Mr. Quincy, who was known to regard the plan 
as impracticable, although the city government as a 
body, consented to the final action." — Life of Josiah 
Quincy of Massachusetts, by his son Edmund Quincy ; 
Boston, Ticknor & Fields, 1868. 

Page 385, note 6. This seems to have been Prof. 
George R. Noyes, who held the chair of Hebrew in the 
Harvard Divinity School for many years. 

Page 385, note 7. Jonathan Mayhew was the min- 
ister of the West Church in Boston from 1747 to his 
death in 1766. He was the real founder of the Uni- 
tarian movement in the United States, and was care- 
fully avoided by the other ministers of Boston on ac- 
count of his radical opinions. 

Page 389, note 8. The Cochituate reservoir brought 
water into Boston for the first time in 1848. 

Page 392, note 9. A " creed," prepared by the sec- 
retary and directors of the American Unitarian Asso- 
ciation, was presented at the annual meeting in 1853, 
and published in the Quarterly Journal for October, 
1853, volume I. pp. 44-49. See Parker's " Friendly 
Letter to the Executive Committee of the American 
Unitarian Association." In the report of the Associa- 
tion an attempt was made to defend the Unitarian body 
against the charge of infidelity and rationalism made 
by the orthodox. The teachings of the transcendental- 
ists and radicals had been attributed to all Unitarians, 
and the leaders of the Association felt that it was time 



428 MATTER AND SPIRIT 



to define explicitly the position they occupied. There- 
fore they said : " We desire, in a denominational capac- 
ity, to assert our profound belief in the divine origin, 
the divine authority, the divine sanctions of the re- 
ligion of Jesus Christ. This is the basis of our asso- 
ciated action. We desire openly to declare our belief 
as a denomination, so far as it can be officially repre- 
sented by the American Unitarian Association, that 
God, moved by his own love, did raise up Jesus to aid 
in our redemption from sin, did by him pour a fresh 
flood of purifying life through the withered veins of 
humanity and along the corrupted channels of the 
world, and is, by his religion, forever sweeping the na- 
tions with regenerating gales from heaven, and visiting 
the hearts of men with celestial solicitations. We re- 
ceive the teachings of Christ, separated from all for- 
eign admixtures and later accretions, as infallible truth 
from God." John W. Chadwick rightly said this is 
" the most curious, not to say amusing, document in 
our denominational archives." See Cooke's Unitarian- 
ism in America, pp. 156-157. 



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